Portugal: Almost 25% of the active population is paid the minimum wage

In Portugal, about 25% of the active population is paid with minimum wage. This is one of the big issues that concerns the pre-election period in view of parliamentary elections held on Sunday 30 January

“We do not live, we survive. We learned to live with the absolutely necessary! “It’s frustrating and sad,” she said Fernanda Moreira, 40, who works at a hospital in her southern suburbs Lisbon.

THE Fernanda, whose husband has a similar salary, is paid the minimum wage since she started her professional life more than 20 years ago. Her salary increases according to the push to the minimum wage that will be given by the respective government.

Like her, about 900,000 other employees in Portugal They live on the minimum wage, which rose to 822 euros a month this year from 589 euros when the Socialists came to power in 2015, in alliance with the radical left in order to exclude the right and end fiscal austerity.

“Proponents of austerity said that the wage freeze was the only possible way to become a competitive country, this is not our recipe,” she said. Minister of Labour, Ana Mendes Godinio, in an interview on a Portuguese television network.

“We have never seen such a significant increase in the minimum wage,” she said Amelia Cascinia Fernandes, a 60-year-old employee at her airport Lisbon, who is also paid the minimum wage, expressing her satisfaction that the Socialists “kept their promise.”

Commitment to increase to 1,000 by 2026

If he wins Sunday’s election, he PiPrime Minister Antonio Costa has pledged to continue growing every year to reach 1,000 a month in 2026.

But the radical left, which supported his minority government Costa, called for more efforts to strengthen purchasing power, as the Portuguese minimum wage is among the lowest in European Union.

Considering that the new increase of 47 euros this year is not enough, the Communist Party voted against along with Bloc of the Left, but also the entire right-wing opposition, the 2022 budget, leading to the announcement of early elections.

The number of minimum wage workers has doubled in ten years and “Portugal is preparing to transform into a minimum wage country,” he said. Eusenio Rosa, an economist adjacent to Communist Party and who recently published a research on the subject.

Another concern of experts is that the difference between the minimum and the average salary, which amounts to 1,160 euros per month, does not stop decreasing.

“Businesses raised the minimum wage because they were required to do so by law, but set aside the remaining wages,” he said. Joao Duke, professor at Higher Institute of Economics inν LisbonTheto. Although it contributed to the return of the unemployment rate to 6% around the pre-pandemic level, this strategy has helped to develop a “low wage” economy around activities such as the hotel sector, tourism or construction.

Always according to him Joao Duke, this situation “favored the outgoing migration of the most qualified, to countries where they will be better paid, and the incoming migration of less qualified workers”.

The issue of the minimum wage has also provoked controversy among PiPrime Minister and its main center-right opponent, Rui Rio, an economist who argues that the minimum wage should increase in line with productivity, which in Portugal is one of the lowest in Europe.

The issue of minimum wages is also on its agenda The European Union, whose member states adopted in early December a common position for more transparency in setting minimum wages, to link it to the level of wealth and productivity without, however, setting a European threshold.