Illustrative stock photo (source: SME)
The minimum wage in Slovakia is worse than the one in Romania, given the purchasing power. This stems from a recent analysis of the Association of Socio-Economic Analysts.
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The minimum wage in Slovakia for 2021 was set at €623, while in Romania it is €458. This makes a difference of 20.7 percent.
However, given the purchasing power parity, the Slovak minimum wage is 14.4 percent lower.
“A Romanian with a minimum wage of €458 will buy more goods and services than a Slovak with €623,” said analyst Ján Košč, as quoted by the TASR newswire.
Several differences
The analysts also point to several inaccuracies in the claims that Slovakia has the highest minimum wage of the entire Visegrad Group (V4) countries in 2021. One of the problems are the exchange rates.
Poland has the highest hourly minimum wage with €3.64, while in Slovakia it is only €3.58, according to Germany’s Hans Böckler Foundation.
Another problem lies in the purchasing power parity, used to compare the income in countries with different price levels.
Some minimum wage critics often claim that the minimum wage in Slovakia is too high, that while in Germany it is 40 percent below the average wage, in Slovakia it is up to 50 percent, according to Tomáš Želinský of the Technical University of Košice.
“They fail to add that income in Germany is more than double compared with that in Slovakia (in purchasing power parity),” Želinský said, as quoted by TASR.
If only people working in industry are taken into account, the difference is much bigger, Želinský added.
