The Toll of the Turkish Economic Crisis

Note: this content appeared in my Quora answer to the question "What are some ugly truths about Turkey?"

Turks are working like slaves. Long hours in little shops, 10–12 hours a day, 6 days a week with low employee benefits or labor rights and not enough pay. If a Turk is working 6 days a week , 10 hours a day , that's 260 hours worked a month compared to 176 hours in the West (8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 22 work days a month in most places in the Western world).

Now let's talk wages. The minimum monthly wage *after taxes* is 2,020.91 lira. And that is a 26% increase from 2018. 2,020 lira, 260 hours, that's 7.77 lira an hour. Currency exchange rate is $1 = 5.95 lira as the start of 2020. So it's $1.30 an hour.

Things are outrageously expensive compared to their income, because of these issues. Used cars, electronics, anything imported. For example, a pair of Nikes' price is based on the dollar, plus import tax, and so with the exchange rate, a pair of those shoes can be a 60 hour work week of pay, compared to less than one 8 hour day of pay for someone in the West who makes local minimum wage. A laptop or smartphone can cost a month or two of wages. Want an iPhone 8? 5,000 lira.

Car and fuel prices are crazy, too!. Many don't understand how high used car prices are in Turkey compared to other countries. Back in 2016 or 2017, I bought an old 2004 Honda Accord in Kusadasi for $10,000, or 35,000 lira at that exchange rate. I had sold the same car (same year and model, everything same) two months earlier, in America, for $2,500, or 8,750 lira.

The same car cost 4 times as much in Turkey.. not counting the exchange rate on top of that. In Turkey that car was 35,000 lira. Some might make that in a year, working 10 hours a day, 6 days a week..3,290 hours of work.

Google used car prices (in U.S.), or check the used car price estimates at Kelley Blue Book and see how much used cars sell for here...then compare to used cars selling in Turkey on sahibinden.com. For the same old car they have to fill with fuel at prices that are the highest in the region. One liter is ~7.08 lira. In neighboring Iran, it is $0.11, or ~ 0.65 lira.

I told my Turkish friend about the difference in car prices and he couldn't believe it. He explained, though, that part of it is how the government collects taxes. But still...

Turks work ~8 to 20 times as many hours to buy that same car or shoes or technology as the rest of the Western world.

Why? These are not some luxury items! It is not fair for them and it makes me angry. The sad part is many don't realize how crazy it is to pay that much. A lot do, of course. But nothing changes.

My Turkish friends were not exposed to what fair capitalism looks like. So, many think capitalism is bad. I don't “like” capitalism, but I don't think the concept is horrible. But how it is done there is very bad.

The solution is complicated, but possible I think:

Revamp the economy to be fair to workers. Pay people more money, don't make them work so many hours, improve work conditions and employee rights, stop charging so much for import products and just improve the tax code.. and get the lira back to a normal exchange rate.

I left Turkey when it was $1 = 3.5 lira. And two years later, it is almost $1 = 6 lira. There is no reason for that.

(The US needs improvement, too, I am not saying our economy is perfect because it's not. But I lived in Turkey, and there's a huge difference. Many people just walk or take crowded small buses or ride scooters. For those with cars, they convert them to run on LPG, because of the fuel costs!)

There's lots of great things about Turkey! But when you see little boys sitting on the sidewalk all day next to a weight scale, trying to make some lira when they should be in school, it is a problem. It is child abuse, basically. And Turks are so used to it, they walk right by. In the US, if a kid was sitting on the sidewalk next to a scale, when they should be in school, people would stop and someone would call the police. But that is how bad things are getting in Turkey.

There is no excuse. None. Turks should not accept it. The country has the resources. I know some things in Turkey are cheap. I know there's great produce and free education. But how can things improve if they are not discussed, and done so respectfully?