Household income of 59 percent of public employees below poverty line, finds union survey

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The Confederation of Public Employees' Trade Unions (KESK) has announced the results of a survey it conducted among public employees between November 18 and December 23.

Accordingly, the household income of 59 percent of the respondents were below December's poverty line of 13.073 lira (1 US dollar = 13.51 Turkish lira) announced by the Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions (Türk-İş)

Türk-İş defines the poverty line as the total amount of basic monthly expenses of a family of four, including  such as food, housing, transportation, education and healthcare.

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Results of the survey:

➟ The average salary of the respondents is 6.614 lira and men's salaries are 419 lira higher than women's.

➟ 85 percent of the respondents earn less than 7,500 lira.

➟ 75 percent of the respondents have rent expenses. This rate rises to 79 percent among women respondents. More than 40 percent of the respondents said their rents were higher than 2,000 lira.

➟ 86 percent of respondents said their bills amount to over 500 lira.

➟ 80 percent of the respondents have debts to pay within the next 10 years.

➟ 22 percent of all respondents, 25 percent of the men and 16 percent of the women do additional work.

➟ 34 percent of the respondents receive financial support from their relatives to make ends meet.

➟ 94 percent of the respondents said they cannot buy quality products because their purchasing power has decreased.

➟ When asked about their most important problems, 90 percent of the respondents said "financial difficulties," "82 percent said "lack of meritocracy," "73 percent said "favoritism," 71 percent said "mobbing and intimidation," 60 percent said "job insecurity" and 46 percent said "gender inequality." (HA/VK)