Dear friends, good morning!
Income up 3.7%, but consumption up 5.2% and saving at minus 3.9%. Somewhere among these three ELSTAT figures lies the reality facing Greek consumers today.
Households’ disposable income rose last year from €159.4 billion to €165.4 billion — an increase of €6 billion. But their consumer spending rose by €8.5 billion, from €163.3 billion to €171.8 billion.
Put simply, households had a little more in their pockets, but spent even more.
This was not, however, a sudden consumer spending spree. In real terms, the increase in consumption was much smaller than in nominal terms. A significant share of the extra euros that left households’ pockets did not buy more goods and services. It went on higher prices, courtesy of inflation.
And this is where the drip-by-drip ordeal begins.
The problem did not emerge in 2025. On the contrary, there are now signs of improvement. The OECD estimates that the average nominal wage in Greece rose by 3.4% in 2025 and the real pre-tax wage by 0.5%. A small increase, but an increase nonetheless. The problem is the starting point.
According to Eurostat, real median equivalised disposable income in Greece remains well below its 2010 level. By 2024, it was already 25.8% lower than in 2010, while the EU figure was 20.4% higher.
In 2025, median disposable income, even after accounting for differences in the cost of living between countries, was just 13,612 purchasing power units per person in Greece, compared with 22,630 in the European Union.
This is the other side of growth.
The Greek economy is growing, unemployment has fallen and incomes are rising. All of this is real. But it is equally true that consumers are still trying to regain purchasing power lost over the course of 15 years.
And while that recovery comes drop by drop, prices do not wait.
The result is perhaps most clearly reflected in saving. The saving rate was already negative in 2024, at -2.4%. In 2025, it fell further, to -3.9%.
Households as a whole are spending more than their disposable income. Somehow, then, the gap has to be made up: from the “nest egg”, through borrowing or by drawing on assets. This is precisely where the political difficulty of the figures lies.
It is not enough for income to rise. It must rise enough for people to feel they can buy more without having to dig deeper into their nest egg.
Because when gains reach people’s pockets drop by drop, while the bills keep mounting faster, even a recovery can feel like an ordeal.