The necessary net monthly income for subsistence for one worker living alone is 1547 BGN. For a three-member family with a child up to 14 years old, 2785 BGN are needed.
This was announced by Violeta Ivanova, Deputy Director of the Institute for Social and Trade Union Research of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB), when presenting the data from the monitoring of consumer prices and the subsistence wage for September 2025.
The necessary income for subsistence is increasing by 1.4% on a quarterly basis and by 6.4% on an annual basis, the union reports.
More than half of employees are provided with an income lower than the subsistence wage (59.6%), according to the CITUB data. However, there is a positive trend for the total number of people in this group to decrease, which is due to the increase in income, they note.
The country continues to have the lowest minimum wage (MW) among the other member states of the European Union (EU). The MW represents 54% of the subsistence wage for one person in a three-member family, which means that it lags behind the necessary living expenses, the CITUB also comments.
The growth of food prices in Bulgaria remains above the EU average. Some foods are growing faster than the EU average, such as bread and bakery products, fruit, chocolate, cheese, according to data from the Confederation of Bulgarian Trade Unions.
The trade union continues to insist on the development of a definition and methodology for the official measurement of a living wage by the state, following the example of the International Labor Organization definition adopted in 2024, BTA reports. The Confederation of Bulgarian Trade Unions also wants the minimum wage to approach the level of the living wage in the medium term.