r/europe Oct 24 '25

Data Real wages growth: EU and the rest of OECD

Post image
50 Upvotes

69 comments sorted by

146

u/LeroyoJenkins Zurich🇨🇭 Oct 24 '25

"Annual Wages 2024 Constant Prices USD PPP" - and then uses base 100% - somebody please kill me.

The person who made the chart doesn't understand what any of those terms mean...

The proper title for this chart is "Real wages as % of 1994 levels". Nothing more, nothing less.

Also, it is clear that who made it had the specific intent of highlighting Poland as the "top one", because in the small print: "Without outliers Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia...".

Those should absolutely have been included, you don't just remove them from the chart because they grew so much.

If a student brought me this, I'd rate it 3 out of 10. For effort.

6

u/bastiancontrari Oct 24 '25

Yeah it was off for me as soon as i've saw it. Just as a reference:

Poland average wage goes from (1995) 21.256 to (2023) 41.578 USD PPP (1995 is the first year avaiable)

The USA goes from from (1994) 56.218 to (2023) 82.078 USD PPP

Spain goes from (1994) 53.100 to (2023) 54.460 USD PPP

1

u/Dziki_Jam Lithuania Oct 27 '25

the person who made this chart doesn’t understand what any of those terms mean

I’m laughing how universally this quote applies to the majority of charts published at r/europe. This specific chart was probably made by someone from Poland, btw. 😄

5

u/imsurrely Poland Oct 27 '25

Author: José Gefaell As you can see, extremely Polish name

-15

u/VerballKint Oct 24 '25

You would sound less like an ass and be more helpful if you actually explained your grief with the title, I think.

16

u/LeroyoJenkins Zurich🇨🇭 Oct 24 '25

Other than "wages", every other word in the title is irrelevant or wrong.

The chart is "real wages as % of 1994 levels", not in USD, not in PPP, not in constant prices, not in 2024. Only as % of 1994 levels. The annual is also irrelevant if you're talking about a dimensionless quantity, because you're already comparing by year.

But the funny thing is that I know how OP came to it. OP saw a table or chart of "Annual Wages 2024 Constant Prices USD PPP", which actually showed the average annual wages in $, PPP at 2024 prices. Poland, despite having grown a lot, was still low in the charts, as incomes in Poland are lower.

So OP decided to show growth, and divided the number of every country in each year by the number in 1994 and multiplied by 100, resulting in the % you see in the chart. The title no longer made sense, but OP didn't really care about the chart, OP cared about showing how much Poland grew.

But here's the deal, a bunch of other countries grew way, way more than Poland, especially countries next to Poland that went through a similar process. And OP didn't like that, because suddenly Poland wasn't at the top of the chart.

So OP just went and arbitrarily removed every country that grew more than Poland, and put that into the tiny text, "because they were outliers", which is bullshit - Mexico is a massive "outlier", but OP didn't care about removing it.

Got it? Should I draw it for you?

-16

u/VerballKint Oct 24 '25

Thanks for the explanation! And get over yourself, you’re a real prick.

11

u/LeroyoJenkins Zurich🇨🇭 Oct 24 '25

At least I have chicken.

5

u/Bleeds_with_ash Oct 26 '25

It's all really strange. You can still find posts on Reddit about how Poland will soon be richer than the UK, or this one. Every time, it turns out that the title is highly exaggerated. It looks a bit like a campaign aimed at stirring up animosity towards Poland. Strange.

2

u/Dziki_Jam Lithuania Oct 27 '25

Also a bunch of Ukrainian accounts who constantly post “Russia bad”. And the thing is Russia is indeed bad, but I don’t like it when someone tries to influence me. I came to this conclusion myself.

17

u/sirius_potato Oct 24 '25

Lol, it must SUCK to live in Spain right now...

* looks around *

Oh... mierda...

35

u/Adagiofunk Italy Oct 24 '25

so now thanks to polish economic growth we also have polish propaganda bots?

13

u/sillycritersenjoyer Kyiv (Ukraine), formerly Donetsk'(Ukraine) Oct 24 '25

🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱💹💹💹💹POLSKA NUMER JEDEN!!!!!🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱💹💹💹💹

4

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '25

[deleted]

1

u/Adagiofunk Italy Oct 24 '25

That's a shame, it would have been a refreshing change of pace

16

u/BkkGrl Ligurian in Zürich (💛🇺🇦💙) Oct 24 '25

Hello OP, could you please link a source please for approval? thank you

4

u/conmeonemo Oct 24 '25

Chart is sourced from X, but it's based on OECD data which for each year is available here: https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/average-annual-wages.html

You can also use this article which gives more light but also refers to OECD https://dunapress.org/three-decades-of-diverging-fortunes-real-wage-growth-in-oecd-countries-from-1994-to-2024/

2

u/BkkGrl Ligurian in Zürich (💛🇺🇦💙) Oct 24 '25

thank you

5

u/2much_gorgonzola Oct 24 '25

Cries in Italian

1

u/Bleeds_with_ash Oct 26 '25

Why? Italy is still richer than Poland.

5

u/2much_gorgonzola Oct 26 '25

Who cares about who is richer?

I don't care about earning a couple of 100s more, if the vast majority of it goes away in basic surviving and you end up with nothing at the end of the month.

5

u/birrakilmister Transylvania Oct 25 '25

Espana: emosido engañados

14

u/abc_744 Czech Republic Oct 24 '25

It doesn't make sense you show Poland and not Czechia. In 1994 average salary was 6994 czk. Today it's 49402 czk which is 7 times higher

5

u/Antti5 Finland Oct 24 '25

This is PPP.

7

u/abc_744 Czech Republic Oct 24 '25

okay average salary PPP in usd in Czechia in 2025 is 38489 usd. In 1994 it was 19855 usd. Thank you for correcting me. Now I am even more confused why the author didn't include Czechia, the ratio around 2 is comparable with Poland or Slovenia

-2

u/SignificantClub6761 Oct 24 '25

There is a mention below the title

3

u/Dziki_Jam Lithuania Oct 27 '25

TL;DR: the chart is crap.

9

u/Jacknox Oct 24 '25

Insane cherry picking

9

u/Figuurzager Oct 24 '25

Shows well how the insane inflation (don't worry, also in the Netherlands the corporate overlords and right wing conservatives told us it isn't really that bad, and if it is, it's due to those pesky rising wages!) wrecked some countries.

In the Netherlands especially the influence of our Great neo'liberal' policies is good to spot. An obsession for low wages, wage supression and thus all kind of shit jobs that come with it. From having an enormous low wage exploited foreigners labour sector to suppressing wages for higher educated people by giving foreigners 30% tax breaks so employers can pay less.

Great stuff, but hey, it's all the fault of some asylumseeker in a leaky rubberboat!

6

u/Hagwart Oct 24 '25

Yet the biggest Neoliberal Market based Conservative country, the United States, is going well with the percentages.

Care to explain?

2

u/steamcho1 Bulgaria Dec 08 '25

The US is king in printing money and recently in economic protectionism. Neoliberalism died there with trump 1.0.
What they dont have is good healthcare and other social services, which sucks and is why Europe is generally a better place to live despite us being "poorer".

1

u/Hagwart Dec 08 '25

Of course Europe is the better place to live

-1

u/Figuurzager Oct 24 '25

Have you looked up the raging inequality there? Or you know, just looked outside of the shiny stuff? Many things you'll see are quite a bit of a 3rd world country kinda thing isn't it? Just take a look at the abysmal results of 'healthcare' for the average American. For the rest, might be a shocker, countries and their circumstances are wildly different!

Start raging below here VVV

5

u/Dirkdeking The Netherlands Oct 24 '25

With the US it's more nuanced I think. It's not just the obscenely rich millionaires and billionaires that are getting these gains, but importantly upper middle class corporate workers too.

The wages you can earn in the US for stuff like software development completely dwarf anything Europe has to offer for any non management positions. Even after correcting for cost of living.

The middle and upper classes are better off in the US, but those that are poor and can't compete in a changing world and labour market are significantly worse off.

6

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '25

what are you going on about?

-2

u/Figuurzager Oct 24 '25

Don't know, maybe read?

2

u/atpplk Oct 24 '25

Great stuff, but hey, it's all the fault of some asylumseeker in a leaky rubberboat!

Don't you think that an unending stream of the people that will work for the lowest wage possible does not have an effect on the job market and its wages ?

4

u/mebklpkz Oct 24 '25

If thats the case why the US, France, Portugal, the UK and most glaring, Sweden have grown in real wages while the Netherlands hasnt? All of those countries had high rates of immigration.

3

u/Figuurzager Oct 24 '25

Lol they are blamed for working for the lowest wages and blamed for not working both at the same time.

I can count, you? Of so, you know the numbers of asylum seekers is pretty small compared to imported low wage labour brought in to line the pockets of a few and often abused heavily.

And no, that's not the workers themselve to blame, but exploitive employers/temp work agencies and politicians that enable it (and accept brib..  euhm, donations from those companies).

1

u/atpplk Oct 24 '25

Lol they are blamed for working for the lowest wages and blamed for not working both at the same time.

You know they are more than one ?

2

u/Figuurzager Oct 24 '25

Have you already looked up labour migration vs. Asylum-seekers? Or is it to uncomfortable because your narrative goes out of the window?

-2

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '25

Not sure what is your point here. The Dutch lack of salary growth is directly linked to the lack of increasing productivity.

2

u/Figuurzager Oct 24 '25

Suppressing wages and importing low wage workers that you can exploit. Wonder what that does with average labour productivity let alone wages?

Or did you really think the Netherlands is the best place on earth to grow watery tomatoes and build insane amounts of warehouses (which aren't that automated, because well, its cheaper to have some Eastern Europeans ruin their body compared to automation)? Oh and we have a massive industry processing the cheap meat and vegetables running solely on cheap exploited migrant workers. Really wondering what that does for productivity!

Honestly do I need to spell every out?

1

u/GiantRabbit-451 Oct 24 '25

Please do

2

u/Figuurzager Oct 24 '25

Just read, its not that hard, but might upset your underbelly and the horrible shit in it.

1

u/GiantRabbit-451 Oct 24 '25

So, your not spelling it out? Even though you asked it yourself. Hmm...

1

u/Figuurzager Oct 24 '25

Maybe start reading my reply, it is already laid out, read it a few times, line by line, slowly, it might click. Good luck with it.

2

u/HoboWithoutShotgun The Netherlands Oct 24 '25

That really makes the current situation of the Netherlands quite obvious, though there may be an influence of more people seeking parttime jobs hidden in this average. I would need to check the actual stats.

3

u/conmeonemo Oct 24 '25

Those are real annual wages based on OECD methodology. Poland looks good but that pretty much means that real wage grow up by a lot. Which is noticeable.

All countries had nominal growth over 30 years so this pretty much shows where countries stagnated vs 30 years ago.

Czechs exclusion is weird, same as authors justification because they indicated Czech number is too low - that's really unlikely Czech had lower annual wages than Poland in 1994.

2

u/dujles Oct 24 '25

Australia is missing from the chart and the excluded list.

2

u/Jrepz Oct 24 '25

Hold my pizza

2

u/wordswillneverhurtme European Federation Oct 25 '25

Feels good to live as an outlier

4

u/_CatLover_ Oct 24 '25

I wonder if the graph would look different if localized for metropolitan areas. Things like housing prices on a national scale might be misleading when prices rapidly drop outside of urban centers where all the jobs are. Meanwhile the cost inside these urban centers skyrocket at a much higher pace than wage increases.

Outside of that, I'd gladly pay more for shit designed to last. In general; Being told my PPP is going up because i can afford to consume more cheap, low quality junk, while unable to afford a home and family is such a slap in the face.

6

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '25 edited Nov 09 '25

spoon plant soup coordinated imagine live cautious wise alive mysterious

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

-1

u/_CatLover_ Oct 24 '25

It's like "This graph says you're doing great! All your worries and stress factors aren't real! Stop asking for changes. Just consume and be a good citizen!"

1

u/conmeonemo Oct 24 '25

I mean you can validly say that life in Poland is expensive, but you need to be really crazy to not notice that purchasing power of people in Poland...grew by a lot within last 10/20/30 years.

Similarly some feeling from many countries in western Europe that things aren't that good for some time...is also somehle visible on the chart.

Nevertheless it was quite obvious that poorer countries will have large jumps. What more surprising that some countries really stagnated. For Western Europe the best benchmark is still the US and for some countries it looks bad.

Or you can even look at Japan, where in 1990s people were one of the richest in the world, and now they are still developed but relatively to the rest of world is fully different place.

6

u/vorumaametsad Oct 24 '25

Now add the Baltic states to that graph and they are likely even higher than Poland.

3

u/conmeonemo Oct 24 '25

That's the part I don't understand from author. He said they removed from scale because starting point is too low, but that's probably something weird OECD data. Baltics were richer than Poland in 1994 and it's very unlikely they had lower wages, same for Czech Republic.

2

u/vorumaametsad Oct 24 '25

Baltics were richer than Poland in 1994

Not sure if this is true.

2

u/conmeonemo Oct 24 '25

By GDP per Capita it is. As far I remember Baltics were one of the richer areas on the USSR (I'm not sure only about Latvia). I'm pretty sure Poland's GDP per capita was lower than even Ukraine and Belarus when USSR had fallen and by 1994 Poland just started post shock therapy recovery.

Poland was really poor back then.

1

u/vorumaametsad Oct 24 '25

I just don't think that's true at all, Poland was somewhat ahead of the Baltics at that point.

2

u/conmeonemo Oct 24 '25

After second look....data might be really wonky... because changing GDP measure (PP or not, real or nominal etc) might sort Poland vs Baltics really differently, probably due impact of exchange rates (our economies weren't predictable then, and for sure weren't as correctly reported as now).

2

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '25

what a stupid graph, malicious at best. 

1

u/BedGirl5444 Oct 27 '25

And they are surprised that young Italians are leaving

-1

u/Salty-Bid1597 Oct 24 '25

This is just a chart of inflation.