Despite growth and pay rises, Greek workers are among the poorest in Europe
Key takeaways
- Inflation has robbed them of a third of their income since the post-2009 global financial crisis, statistics show.
- Five years later, Greeks had the second-lowest annual salaries in the European Union after Bulgaria, according to Eurostat, the EU statistical agency.
- Every other Eastern European country that had become a free-market democracy in 1991 and an EU member in 2004, almost a quarter-century after Greece, has leapfrogged ahead of it.
Why this matters: an international story with cross-border implications worth tracking.
Inflation has robbed them of a third of their income since the post-2009 global financial crisis, statistics show.
xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogle Add Al Jazeera on Googleinfo In real terms, Greek incomes have fallen by a third in the past 15 years [File: Louisa Gouliamaki/Reuters]By John T Psaropoulos Published On 1 May 20261 May 2026Athens, Greece – When the conservative New Democracy party came to power in Greece in 2019, it promised a work-driven economy that would grow by 4 percent a year and elevate living standards after a decade of austerity.
In an appeal to the productive, non-state economy, Kyriakos Mitsotakis became prime minister, asking Greeks to “work together to build a new compact of trust based on meritocracy, industriousness, security, justice, opportunities for everyone”.