Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov has announced these days that about 193,000 out of 3.1 million taxpayers in Bulgaria declare monthly incomes of about 4,600 euros or more. At the same time, the average salary in this country is just over 600 euros a month, while the average pension is 200 euros. According to statistics, salaries in Bulgaria have increased and the minimum wage has reached 280 euros, but in fact a huge part of people have extremely low incomes and about half of the workers are socially insured on a minimum wage. According to the latest Eurostat survey, quoted by the Investor website, income inequality in Bulgarian society is deepening and this country is in the first place in terms of difference between the incomes of the richest and poorest in society. This gap has been growing at the fastest rate compared to other EU members and currently 20% of the richest people in the country have incomes 8.2 times higher than the 20% of the poorest Bulgarians. The numbers are shocking and give ground for thought and some conclusions.

The income gap between the poor and the rich has been widening, although the country's constitution states that Bulgaria is a welfare state. This shows that state income policy does not fulfill one of its main goals of ensuring acceptable living conditions for citizens. There are about 1 million employees in the public sector but few of them receive decent wages. Even medical staff at state and municipal hospitals has been actively protesting these days with demands for a rise in their "miserable" monthly pay.

The fact that there are people in this country who receive European salaries is not a bad thing as their employers have successful business with enough profit for good wages. This group of wealthy people is made up primarily of workers in the private sector, and despite a 10% increase in public sector wages this year, salaries in the public sector remain significantly lower than those in the private business.

But one should not think that the authorities are not interested in the incomes of the population. Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov said that next year a new 10% rise in public sector remuneration is envisaged. 2.5 million retirees received a 5.8% increase in pensions in July; a new increase of 6.6% is expected in 2020.

In fact, the issue of income inequality is not only Bulgarian as it is observed almost everywhere in the world and worries international organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank, the EU (where 22.5% of the population are considered “poor”), politicians, governors, economists and sociologists. It is so because the so-called middle class, the one that must be at the heart of modern society, is becoming increasingly unstable in many countries, at the expense of the widening gap between the wealthy and the poor.

English: Alexander Markov