Share of working poor in Bulgaria has increased by 50% in the past few years

The number of working poor in Bulgaria has increased by 50% in the past few years. Their proportion rose from 8 to nearly 12%. This was announced by the Trade Union "Podkrepa" at a forum on the living wage and minimum wage. The trade union has not yet received the draft budget for 2025 from the Finance Ministry to present its demands on income to the government.

"We have a 50% increase in the working poor, the last years from 8% going up to 11.6%, which is not good for the country. The people remain poor. In the statistics we see 48% of households are below the poverty line, excluding social transfers, which is a huge share. That is half the households - something is not being done right. There is no budget, there has been talk for a month about certain measures, but at the same time we do not see anything in black and white, nor do we see any budget calculations. We expect there to be a budget to talk about specifically ", stressed Atanas Katsarchev, chief economist of the Trade Union "Podkrepa".

At the forum, it was reported that the minimum wage is very far from the minimum necessary for life.