illustrating hardship in Greece

[Skgoa]

Found this on Facebook. IMHO it illustrates very well why crying for even more austerity and extracting wealth from the greek populace is futile at best.

- minimum wage
- litre of gas
- heating oil
- a very common pastry


I remember back in 1999 you could get a great meal for what would have exchanged to a couple of euro...

[Colonel Olrik]

I don't think that's right. Feel free to correct me, but my info from various sources has been that the current minimum salary in Greece is 751 eur, with the troika demanding a cut of 22%, down to 586. In comparison, the minimum wage in Portugal is 485 eur, and in Spain 641 eur. No clue about the price of the other things, but 1.5 eur for a pastry is normal in Portugal.

[Thanas]

Also, let us not forget that the Greek minimum wage is paid 14 times, whereas the portugese one is paid 12 times a year.

[Akhlut]

I don't think that's right. Feel free to correct me, but my info from various sources has been that the current minimum salary in Greece is 751 eur, with the troika demanding a cut of 22%, down to 586. In comparison, the minimum wage in Portugal is 485 eur, and in Spain 641 eur. No clue about the price of the other things, but 1.5 eur for a pastry is normal in Portugal.

And? To use a rather extreme example, in North America, the minimum wage (and the cost of living) in the United States is much, much higher than in Mexico; even though Greece and Portugal are in the Eurozone, that doesn't necessarily mean that the costs of living are going to be even near identical.

For instance, if Numbeo.com is accurate, we can compare Greece and Portugal fairly easily.

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/co ... y=Portugal
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/co ... try=Greece

Now, for most things, they are fairly similar (only a €0.10 difference between gas prices; pack of cigarettes is nearly identical; as is internet), and while rent is cheaper in Greece, the cost per square meter of an apartment is significantly cheaper in Portugal (cost of a 90 square meter apartment in the city center in Portugal versus Greece: €142,190 vs €181,880, respectively), so that should kind of balance things out.

However, there are some large differences, with the numbers generally favoring Portugal. Average monthly utilities are about €30 higher in Greece, while average food prices in general are much higher in Greece (€1.21 in Greece vs. €0.65 in Portugal for a liter of milk; €3.27 in Greece vs. €1.68 in Portugal for a dozen eggs; €7.44 in Greece vs. €5.61 in Portugal per kilogram of boneless, skinless chicken breast; €6.16 in Greece vs. €3.72 in Portugal for a mid-range bottle of wine). Food and utility prices are a real killer, as that €30 utility difference a month for 12 months equals €360, and food costs can be enormous; if a family uses a liter of milk a week, that comes out to a difference of €33 Euros over a year (and that's lowballing milk use, I think; my family of three goes through about 4 liters a week, which would turn that into over €120 more spent a year on simply milk alone), while if a family eats 3kg of chicken a week, they're paying €2,111 a year, while a family in Portugal spends €875, a difference of €1,236.

I'll also note that if Numbeo's numbers on median income are true, the average Greek only makes about €25 more a month than the average Portuguese, indicating a lot more Greeks are earning minimum wage than Portuguese.

So, I think the sentiment of the complaint is not flawed, even if the numbers used are inaccurate.

[Colonel Olrik]

All true, but a 20% difference in the claimed minimum salary is not insignificant. And that's in the future, when and if the new conditions take effect, as right now, the salary is 40% higher than indicated. I disagree with the conditions of all bailout deals, the EU should have made much more to ensure economic development and protection of the poor and middle classes. However, it's a bit rich to make such errors when people are justly pissed with the false accounting in Greece.

[Narkis]

@OP: Numbers aren't entirely accurate, but they're not far from my experience. They could be explained if the guy who made it lives in Athens, the most expensive place to be.

I don't think that's right. Feel free to correct me, but my info from various sources has been that the current minimum salary in Greece is 751 eur, with the troika demanding a cut of 22%, down to 586. In comparison, the minimum wage in Portugal is 485 eur, and in Spain 641 eur. No clue about the price of the other things, but 1.5 eur for a pastry is normal in Portugal.

Yours are the "mixed" numbers. Social Security fees, a bit less than 20%, get deducted before the worker sees a penny. Minimum wage for young people used to be 592 E (after deductions). It'll not be quite as high now.

Also, let us not forget that the Greek minimum wage is paid 14 times, whereas the portugese one is paid 12 times a year.

Not exactly. The 13th salary is essentially a Christmas bonus, and the 14th is a half-salary Easter bonus. And not everyone gets them. I've heard that a third of those who work in the private sector can expect neither, but take this with a grain of salt.

Numbeo's a nifty page. Some of the price variance it shows is due to recent tax hikes. The 3.8/4.2 split in cigarettes, for instance, is the exact before/after comparison.

[Surlethe]

What proportion of households in Greece are living on minimum wage?

[Narkis]

I don't really know where to look for that. Preliminary searching has revealed nothing relevant.