Turkey’s minimum wage fell below the hunger line within days of being announced for 2026 and has continued to lose value against the rising cost of living, while workers are paying a growing share of taxes and retirees are increasingly being pushed back into the labor force, according to a new report by the research arm of a major labor union confederation.
The report, titled “The Working Class Cost-of-Living Crisis: Minimum Wage, Tax and Retirement” and released Monday by DİSK-AR, the research center of the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions (DİSK), says Turkey has increasingly become a country of minimum-wage earners as collective bargaining coverage remains weak and low pay spreads across the labor market.
According to the report the 2026 net minimum wage, set at 28,075 lira ($602) in late December, was overtaken by the hunger line announced a week later. By the fifth month of the year, it amounted to only about a quarter of the poverty line.
The hunger line, calculated by labor unions as a cost-of-living measure, refers to the amount a family of four needs to spend on a healthy and balanced diet. The poverty line includes basic expenses such as housing, utilities, clothing, transportation, education and healthcare.
DİSK-AR found that nearly 35 percent of employees in Turkey earn either the minimum wage or only slightly above it, no more than 5 percent higher.
The report said this gives Turkey the largest share of minimum-wage and near-minimum-wage workers in Europe.
Another 15 percent of employees are paid below the legal minimum wage.
The report said the minimum wage has fallen sharply compared to national income per capita, declining from 80.6 percent in 1974 to 45.7 percent in 2026. DİSK-AR said this shows that workers have been excluded from economic growth rather than receiving a fairer share of it.
According to the report, only three European countries had a lower minimum wage than Turkey in 2026. DİSK-AR said low wages are more widespread in Turkey because only around 10 percent of workers are covered by collective bargaining agreements, which set pay and benefits. In many European countries such agreements cover more than 60 percent of workers.
Workers covered by collective bargaining agreements earn significantly more, with average monthly gross earnings 91.9 percent higher than those of workers outside such agreements, the report said.
The report comes against the backdrop of persistently high inflation and tight monetary policy.
Official data showed annual inflation at 32.61 percent in May, while prices were up 16.61 percent from the beginning of the year and 32.24 percent by 12-month averages.
The central bank kept its key policy rate unchanged at 37 percent in June, saying inflation risks remained.
Workers face growing tax burden
DİSK-AR also said Turkey’s tax system deepens income inequality by putting a heavier burden on wage earners while wealth and capital are taxed more lightly.
According to the report, workers lose a growing share of their gross wages to income tax and mandatory payroll contributions during the year. DİSK-AR said those payments rise from 21.6 percent of gross wages at the start of the year to 29.7 percent later in the year, meaning more than a quarter of workers’ gross pay goes to compulsory deductions before they receive their take-home pay.
DİSK-AR identified the limited adjustment of income tax brackets as a key problem. The lowest income tax bracket is set at 190,000 lira ($4,073). If income tax brackets had been increased in line with the minimum wage since 2000, the first bracket would now exceed 658,000 lira ($14,107), the report said.
The report also pointed to Turkey’s growing reliance on indirect taxes, which disproportionately affect lower-income groups because they are applied to consumption. The share of indirect taxes in total tax revenue has risen from 48 percent to 64 percent over 36 years.
By contrast, the share of taxes on property fell from 3.7 percent to 1.1 percent over the past 11 years, according to DİSK-AR.
The report said workers now account for a larger share of tax revenue than capital, with wage earners contributing 19.6 percent of total tax revenue compared with 13.1 percent from capital.
The findings come amid broader criticism of Turkey’s tax policy. In May parliament approved a tax package creating a new asset-repatriation amnesty and granting a 20-year income tax exemption on foreign-sourced income to some people who become tax residents in Turkey.
Retirement no longer provides security
The pension system reflects the same deterioration in income security, DİSK-AR said.
The average pension fell from 122 percent of the minimum wage in 2002 to 84 percent in 2025, meaning average pensions are now 16 percent below the minimum wage. Retirees’ share of national income has also declined, with the average pension as a share of per capita national income falling from 46.4 percent in 2002 to 31.6 percent in 2025.
DİSK-AR said Social Security Institution (SGK) premium revenues have increased by a factor of 273 since 2002, while spending on pensions and healthcare rose by a factor of 211, arguing that the increase in revenue has not been reflected in pension payments.
Low pensions have pushed more retirees into the labor force. The share of retirees who are working or looking for work rose from 36.6 percent in 2002 to 69.5 percent in 2025, meaning roughly two out of every three retirees are working or seeking work, according to the report.
The findings are in line with a May study titled “Retiree Poverty in Turkey,” released by the Forum Institute for Social Research, with fieldwork carried out by pollster Verita Analitik and support from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
The study found that 89.4 percent of retirees surveyed cited financial necessity as the main reason they continued working or looking for work after retirement, while 88.7 percent said they could not stop working because they had to make ends meet.
A separate May cost-of-living study by KAMU-AR, the research unit of the United Public Workers’ Confederation, found that Turkey’s lowest monthly pension no longer covered even 16 days of food expenses for a family of four, while the minimum wage covered only about 22 days.
DİSK-AR said low wages, rising tax pressure and inadequate pensions have become central elements of Turkey’s working-class cost-of-living crisis.