While the government continues to drag the citizens into a bottleneck with its bad economic policies, there are economic problems on the agenda of the citizens. While the citizens were struggling with the economic crisis, the ‘Istanbul Barometer, Istanbul Agenda Research’ report was published by the Istanbul Planning Agency (IPA), affiliated to the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB). Participants in the study stated that they could not get the food they preferred due to financial inadequacy. It was observed that some of the participants went to reduce portion sizes due to financial inadequacy. Citizens who reduced their portions due to the government's bad economic policies, thus, had to heed the advice of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's wife Emine Erdogan to ‘shrink the portions’ to citizens last year.
THE ECONOMY OF THE COUNTRY IS MOST TALKED AT THE HOUSES OF RESIDENTS OF ISTANBUL
According to the July data of the ‘Istanbul Agenda Research’ report announced by the Istanbul Planning Agency (IPA); While 71,5 percent of the Istanbul residents who participated in the research stated that they mostly talked about general economic problems, 5,8 percent of the participants talked about the high increases in housing sales and rental prices. While 40,2 percent of the participants said that general economic problems are on the agenda of Istanbul, 36,4 percent stated that there are price increases in housing sales and rentals. In the research conducted with the people of Istanbul, the participants were asked, ‘What is the agenda of Turkey in your opinion?’ While 20,7 percent of the participants pointed to fuel hikes, 14,6 percent pointed to the uncertainty in the exchange rate, 13,7 percent of the participants replied with violence against healthcare workers and killing of Dr. Ekrem Karakaya.
86,3 PERCENT OF MINIMUM WAGE EARNERS REDUCE PORTIONS
According to the July data of the research; While 61,7 percent of Istanbul residents stated that they were worried about reaching enough food, 70,1 percent stated that they could not get the food they preferred due to financial inadequacy. The rate of those who cannot afford the food they prefer due to inadequacy is 80,1 percent among citizens with low socio-economic status. While 62,1 percent of the participants reduced their portions because they could not reach enough food, it was seen that this rate was 66,1 percent in families with children. It was learned that the portion reduction rate was 86,3 percent for those with an income of 5,000 Turkish Liras (TL) or less.
THERE IS ALMOST NO ONE WHO CAN SAY “I’M LIVING ON” WITHOUT BUT!
Again, according to the same research; While 25,1 percent of the participants stated that they got into debt because they could not make some payments, it was seen that 18,5 percent of the participants could not make a living. Thus, in the July survey, it was revealed that 43,6 percent of the participants could not make a living. The situation among the participants who say they can make a living is as follows; While 41,2 percent of the participants stated that they could barely make ends meet, 15,2 percent stated that they put money aside while making a living. In terms of credit usage, 45,3 percent of the participants have monthly credit cards. While it was stated that they were able to pay their debts, it was learned that 38,4 percent of them could only pay the minimum amount of their monthly credit card debt. 8 percent of the participants said that they could not pay their monthly credit card debt at all.