A railway worker wrote to our editorial office. He tracked his salary change over 11 years.
See his letter below. And for contrast, we will start from the position of the authorities of our country.
Official position of the state
The Latvian government claims that the income of the population is growing steadily. At the same time, mysterious average numbers are usually given, where the income of management and ordinary workers is heaped together, and this whole thing is called the average salary.
They argue that the average salary in Latvia is approaching 1,100 euros per month. This is the so-called “salary on paper”, which is also pure speculation, because workers are paid not with “paper”, but with real money. “On paper” you can write at least a million.
But what is it really? A word to the worker.
“I decided to calculate the salary: how much income has grown in 10 years.
Salary working for the railway in 2009 – 500 lats (in 2010 it was already 400).
Salary for 2020: 651 euros (651×0.715) = 465 lats.
There is an increase in the worker’s income from 500 to 465 (lats, in the old currency) – this is without taking into account the increase in prices for food, apartment, travel, etc.
So raising living standards is ironic”.
We would like to add that, taking into account the official inflation rate for the specified period, 500 lats in 2009 is the equivalent of 815 euros in 2020. That is, in this case, there was a reduction in wages by 20%.
To restore the level of purchasing power of the salary 11 years ago, it must be increased by 25%.
In addition, more and more people have to part with their profession and move to lower-paid positions. Income stratification deepens. And this happens along the class border: the workers are getting poorer, the capitalists get richer. The petty bourgeoisie go bankrupt and enter the class of workers.
