Only 4 pct of Turks say they can meet all their basic needs: survey

Only 4 percent of people in Turkey have said they can meet all their basic living costs, while 17 percent have said they can’t meet any of their basic needs, the Kronos news website reported on Thursday, citing a survey conducted by Aksoy Research.

According to the survey, titled “Turkey Monitor,” which was conducted in the third week of January, 36.6 percent of Turks said they were able to meet “very little” of their basic needs; 28.5 percent said they could meet “some” of them; and 13.7 percent said they could meet “most” of their basic needs.

Among supporters of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), 29.9 percent can meet “very little” of their basic needs, while 14.3 can’t meet any of them. A total of 6.9 percent of the party’s supporters said they were able to meet all of their needs, according to the survey.

It further revealed that only 0.4 percent of main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) supporters were able to meet all of their basic needs, while 50.5 percent said they could meet “very little” of them and 23.1 said they couldn’t meet any of them.

Fully 10.8 percent of supporters of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) can’t meet any of their needs, according to the survey, while 33.3 percent are able to meet “very little” of them and 36.3 percent of are able to meet “some” of them.

Among supporters of the nationalist opposition İYİ (Good) Party, an ally of the CHP, 12 percent said they were able to meet “none” of their basic needs, 38 percent said “very little,” 40.2 percent said “some” and 9.8 percent said they were able to meet “most” of them, while none of them said they could meet all of their basic needs.

Turks started 2022 with news of jacked-up prices, fueled by a currency crisis amid the highest rate of inflation in nearly two decades.

Earlier this month, Turkey’s Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK) said it had raised electricity prices by around 50 percent for lower-demand households for 2022, and more than 100 percent for high-demand commercial users, while natural gas prices rose 25 percent for residential use and 50 percent for industrial use, according to Turkey’s national distributor Petroleum Pipeline Corporation (BOTAŞ).

In the same period, the price of one liter of gasoline increased by 61 kuruş from TL 12.4 to TL 13, while a liter of diesel saw its price increase by TL 1.29 from TL 11.45 to TL 12.74.

Turkey’s annual rate of inflation has surged to its highest level since 2002, according to official data. Consumer prices in the country jumped to 36.08 percent last month from the same period in 2020, up from 21.3 percent in November, according to the Turkish statistics office.

However, the majority of Turks believe inflation is higher than 100 percent.

Although Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vowed in December to rein in inflation decimating Turks’ purchasing power, economists claim the promise is unlikely to come true.