Romania along with Latvia and Bulgaria have the lowest minimum wages of the 27 EU member states, according to Eurostat data released Friday.
In January 2022, 13 EU countries had minimum wages below 1,000 euros per month: Bulgaria (332 euros), Latvia (500 euros), Romania (515 euros), Hungary (542 euros) at the bottom of the group and Greece (774 euros), Malta (792 euros) and Portugal (823 euros) at the top of the bottom group.
The wages are all gross before tax.
Romania’s minimum wage rose by 10.9% on Jan. 1 this year to 2,550 lei gross.
Slovenia and Spain had minimum wages just over 1,000 euros per month, while in France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Ireland it was over 1,500 euros.
In Luxembourg, the minimum wage is 2,257 euros, the highest in the EU.
For comparison, the federal minimum wage in the United States was 1,110 euros in January 2022.
The difference between the highest and lowest minimum wads was about 7 times.
However, the disparities are smaller once price level differences are taken into account. In purchasing power standard (PPS) terms, minimum wages in member states with lower price levels become relatively higher compared with those in the member states with higher price levels.
