Israelis earning minimum wage lose an average of $857 (NIS 2,750) per month after paying for living expenses, the second-highest monthly deficit in the world, according to research compiled by money.co.uk.
Israel’s minimum wage is NIS 5,300 per month, or about NIS 29 per hour, a sum last updated in December 2017. The report calculated the monthly minimum wage in each country based on adjusted data from the OECD, minus the average cost of living for one person and average rental prices.
Minimum-wage workers in the United States lose the most every month, an average of $876 per month. There was a large gap between the income figures for the United States and Israel to the third country on the list, Slovakia, which shows a $580 monthly deficit for minimum wage workers. Mexico ($563) and Luxembourg ($505) round out the top five.
The countries that leave the highest levels of disposable income for minimum-wage workers are France ($466), Turkey ($424) and Poland ($240).
It is important to note that minimum wage is lower than the cost of living in most countries, with workers in 59% of countries losing money every month. Worldwide, the average minimum-wage worker loses $128 per month after rent and living costs, according to the report.
Israel has not updated its minimum wage in nearly four years, although the current rate is about 38% higher than it was a decade ago, when it stood at NIS 3,850 per month. The Histadrut labor federation has pushed for raising the rate to NIS 6,000 per month, but there is a general sense that the minimum wage cannot be raised during the corona pandemic due to the economic uncertainty that still plagues local businesses.
Higher salaries mean higher costs for businesses, many of which are still struggling with the loss of income from overseas tourism and looming quarantine fears.
That being said, there is pressure on stores and restaurants employing low-skilled workers to increase their compensation packages, as many have had difficulties rehiring workers this summer even after government unemployment benefits ended in July.
In the United States, an initiative by President Joe Biden to more than double the national minimum wage to $15 an hour fizzled in Congress, but about 40% of US states and many large employers like Walmart, Target and Best Buy have adopted the $15 standard. Last week, e-commerce giant Amazon increased its average starting wage in the US to more than $18 an hour ahead of its plan to hire 125,000 more workers.
Meanwhile, Israel’s cost of living has risen only 7.5% in the last 10 years, the fourth-lowest rise in prices in the world, the report said.
Greece’s cost of living rose just 0.68% over the decade from 2010 to 2020, while Japan and Ireland saw prices rise 5.5% and 6.2%, respectively.
The social protests of 2011, in which hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets to protest the continuing rise in the cost of living, scared Israel food manufacturers from making future price increases, a report by BDO Israel found in July. Since 2011, food prices in Israel have risen only 1.8%, compared with an average of 16% among OECD countries, the report found.
Figures in the money.co.uk report are based on cost of living and rental price data from numbeo.com, adjusted minimum wage data from the OECD, and historical cost of living statistics sourced from the World Bank.