Page 43 - RusRPTAug24

bne August 2024 Southeast Europe I 43
Turks are hurting. Busy shopping afternoons in Istanbul and other cities are no longer an option for many as the government attempts a painful economic adjustment. / Zumrasha, public domain
Economic shock therapy makes 2024 most trying in a generation for Turks
The government this month hiked the average monthly pension to around 14,000 lira from 12,000, but as part of the fiscal and monetary tightening that it is using to fight Turkey’s rampant inflation it opted not to provide Turks with a mid-year boost to the 17,002-lira minimum wage, which more than half of workers in the country of 85mn live on or around.
The minimum wage is dwarfed by the estimated poverty line, which stands at 61,820 lira ($1,870) for a family of four in Ankara, according to a June report by union organisation Turk-Is.
At the end of the day, someone has to pay the price for Erdogan’s economic missteps.
As bne IntelliNews wrote in May: “Offi- cials are applying one of the harshest versions of an old-school programme, handing the bill to the masses. Even the IMF, afraid of social explosions over the booming inequalities across the globe, does not apply this kind of programme anymore.”
Erdogan – who has in no way even come close to issuing a mea culpa
over the consequences of his easy- money “Erdoganomics”, but since his re-election last year has executed a complete U-turn to provide his new economic team with the scope to undo his handiwork – has urged patience. However, further expected job losses in the coming months that add to the “rock bottom” sentiments of sorely tested Turks – amounting to grinding poverty for tens of millions – could prove politically treacherous for him.
"Eating out and vacationing is entirely out of the question," financial firm worker Aynur, 58, told Reuters. "You don't want people to come over because you can't afford to host them. My social life has ended."
bne IntelIiNews
The year of 2024 is emerging as the most trying in a generation in Turkey where the finance ministry and central bank are using shock therapy to try to fix chronic economic distortions widely regarded as caused by the wayward policies of the country’s president of more than 20 years, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
A report from Reuters told how poverty and obliterated living standards are testing the social fabric like never before.
"I may still be walking, but I am not really living," Fettah Deniz, 73, whose monthly pension of 13,000 lira ($393) is three times below the ascribed poverty line of a person in his situation, told the news agency.
Deniz survives partly because his children help him out. He told how
at holiday gatherings he has even avoided his grandchild as he had no extra cash to give. That’s "the plight
of many honourable and traditional people in our society," remarked Deniz, who assists in the running of a retirees association in Istanbul's working class Bayrampasa neighbourhood.
Another retiree, Mustafa Yalcin, 69, reflected in comments to Reuters how he opted to stay overnight in a hospital during a trip to Gaziantep because he didn’t have the means to pay for a hotel and wished not to prove a burden to relatives who would feel obliged to feed him.
“At the end of the day, someone has to pay the price for Erdogan’s economic missteps”
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