Kamu-Sen: Poverty Threshold rises to 1,107 YTL, hunger threshold rises to 848 YTL

from The New Anatolian

According to Turkey Public Employers’ Trade Unions Confederation (Türkiye Kamu-Sen), poverty threshold rose to 1,107 YTL and hunger threshold rose to 848 YTL.

The written statement of Türkiye Kamu-Sen announced the results of the January Minimum Living Index that they have set through the research due to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUİK) January 2007 prices. The index says that the poverty threshold for an employee rose to 1,107.30 YTL. The minimum living threshold of a family of four is established to be 2,225.13 YTL.

The index gives out the fact that the minimum living threshold for a family of four came out to be 5.63 percent higher than the previous month and that the hunger threshold for a working individual rose by 5.03 percent and stood at 848.85 YTL.

Due to the research conducted, the sum of the average food and accommodation expenditures of a family of four is estimated to be 842.25 YTL in January.

The research also said that due to the January 2007 data, the required expenditure to have the healthy diet which is established by medical institutions is 16.26 YTL per day. The total food expenditure of the family stood at 487.86 YTL per month.

Half of the civil servant salary goes to food
The research said: “As at January 2007, the expenditure of a civil servant for family diet is 51.57 percent of his salary, which is 945.93 YTL on average. The accommodation expenditure taking place in TUİK data stands at the 37.46 percent of the average salary.

A civil servant is obliged to spend 89.03 percent of his average salary just on food and accommodation expenditures and left with just the 10.97 percent for the other needs. A civil servant family living on an average salary has only 103.77 YTL out of the January 2007 salary for the other necessaries such as transportation, health, education, communication and clothing.”