8 September 2009 / TODAY'S ZAMAN WITH WIRES, İSTANBUL
The poverty line, the amount that a family of four should earn monthly in order to pay its rent and meet its basic needs such as food, transportation, clothing and education, increased by 0.03 percent in August over the preceding month to TL 2,804, according to data from the Turkish Public Workers' Labor Union (Kamu-Sen).
Kamu-Sen announced the results of its monthly poverty and hunger line survey on Monday. According to the union's report, the monthly salary necessary to adequately feed a family of four, referred to as the hunger line, was TL 603. Kamu-Sen based its research on Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) consumer and produce price indexes for August.
In August, TurkStat data showed that a civil servant earning TL 1,321 a month had to spend some 46 percent of his/her salary on family expenditures. Minimum wage currently stands at TL 741 in Turkey.
