Turkey increases pensions by about 16 pct

In Turkey, retirees, excluding former civil servants, will see their pensions increase by mere 15.75% in the first half of 2025. The lowest pensions will be 6,532 lower than the hunger threshold.

Saturday January 04 2025 12:55 am

Duvar English

With the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) releasing the latest inflation data for 2024, pensions were set to increase by 15.75%.

The salary increase rates for both civil servants and retirees are determined by the six-month inflation rate. The twelve-month average inflation rate was reported to be 58.51% whereas the six-month consumer inflation rate has been set at 15.75%.

Retirees, excluding former public employees, will receive a mere 15.75 percent as the TÜİK had announced the lowest monthly inflation rate in 19 months.

Base salaries for those receiving less than 12,500 lira will see an increase of 15.75%. However, since these base salaries will remain below 12,500 lira even after the increase, the majority of retirees will not experience a significant boost in their pensions.

Approximately 3.7 million retirees had pensions below 12,500 lira prior to this increase.

With the planned adjustment, the lowest pension will rise by less than 2,000 lira, bringing it to 14,468 liras.

However, the salary and pension increases for civil servants and civil servant retirees were limited to 11.54% due to collective bargaining agreements, resulting in a total increase of 33% for the past year.

With the increase, the lowest civil servant salary will rise from 39,177 Turkish liras to 43,698 liras, while the lowest pension for retired civil servants will go from 17,587 liras to 19,616 liras.

As a result, the gap between the lowest civil servant salary and the lowest retired civil servant pension will widen to 24,082 liras.

Turkey’s hunger threshold for a family of four exceeded 21,000 Turkish liras in December 2024, whereas the poverty threshold was recorded as 68,675 liras, according to the research of Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions (Türk-İş).

Hence, the lowest pensions will be 6,532 lower than the hunger threshold.

($1=35.38)