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Nearly 9.5 million workers in Türkiye, almost half of the country’s wage earners, receive salaries at or around the monthly minimum wage of ₺22,104 ($520.63), according to a study by the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Türkiye Research Center (DISK-AR).
The report asserted that the minimum wage, last set in December 2024, has effectively become a baseline for earnings across a wide range of sectors and now falls well below the hunger threshold, which rose to ₺29,828 as of November. This means that even full-time workers earning the minimum wage struggle to meet the most basic nutritional and living needs for themselves and their households.
According to the report, despite notable nominal increases over the past two decades, the purchasing power of the minimum wage has significantly eroded. In 2025 alone, workers on minimum wage saw a real-term loss of over ₺50,000 due to inflation, as consumer prices rose over 28.6% since last December, as of October. The wage’s value relative to economic output also declined, with the gross minimum wage dropping from 80.6% of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in 1974 to just 43.6% in 2025.
Between January 2024 and December 2025, the minimum wage surpassed the hunger threshold in only four out of 24 months—an indication that it consistently falls short of covering basic living needs.
Stressing that low wages disproportionately affect women and informal workers, the report noted that while 46.7% of all wage earners make minimum wage or less, the rate rises to 60.1% among women, with nearly half of informal workers earning below the legal minimum and lacking access to social protections or collective bargaining rights.
The report further drew attention to the fact that Türkiye now has one of the lowest euro-denominated minimum wages in Europe. While 14 countries had lower minimum wages than Türkiye in 2015, only two rank below it in 2025, a shift attributed to currency devaluation and weak wage-to-productivity alignment. It also contrasted Türkiye with EU countries, where higher unionization rates and wider collective bargaining coverage reduce reliance on statutory minimums.
The union criticized the current tax exemption method for minimum wage earners, arguing that calculating the exemption as a deduction from the tax itself, rather than from taxable income, increases the effective tax burden on workers. It also pointed to imbalances in social security subsidies, noting that while employers received ₺267.8 billion ($6.31 billion) in government support in 2024 alone, with the subsidy reaching ₺207.6 billion in the first 10 months of 2025, no equivalent assistance was provided directly to employees.
The report concluded by calling for wage-setting reforms based on international labor standards, urging lawmakers to enshrine a calculation method that considers the needs of both workers and their dependents, alongside a rule-based commission structure to ensure transparent and equitable determination of future minimum wages. It also recommended that the minimum wage be determined twice a year to better reflect changing economic conditions.
The minimum wage commission for 2026, comprising representatives from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security as well as labor unions, is set to convene later this month, though no specific date has been announced yet.
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