Finance Minister Christos Staikouras defined anew Greece’s middle classes. Speaking at the Parliament on Thursday about the draft budget 2020, he revealed that in this tragicomedy country the middle class income starts at €524 per month.
A single-person household belongs to the middle class when it has an annual income between “6,294 and 16,783 euros.” For two-person-households Staikouras set the limits even lower, between “8,901 and 23,735” – €741,75 per month – and for three persons between “10,901 and 29,069 euros,” which translates into €908 per month.
Worth noting that the monthly minimum wage for unskilled laborers is set at 650 euros. At the same time, the poverty line across the European Union is at 6,000 euros annual income in the average.
Staikuras definition of the “middle class” not only stunned the opposition but also members of the government.
Then Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis has been proclaiming wherever he stands or sits that top priority of his government is to support the middle classes because they paid the highest price during the economic crisis.
It was less than 10 days before the elections, when ND MP Dora Bakoyianni, the PM’s sister, had declared that to the middle classes belong those who have annual income between 30,000-70,000 euros.”
In this sense, the famous New Democracy promises for tax cuts for the middle classes will remain a dream also in 2020. The generous tax-cuts in the draft budget benefit the upper classes.
Anyway, Staikouras’ statements have also a specific impact on such important issues like the social dividend.
The sudden virtual rise of the middle-class dramatically shrinks the number of beneficiaries and therefore also the amount to be spend.
via @JoDi
PS Yupi! We’re finally middle-class!
In my country being middle class is defined by your profession, doctor, lawyer dentist etc, as for €500 a month, a hundred euro a month wow people earn that weekly €500 where I live and still wouldn’t be called middle class