TÜİK announced December’s inflation rate as 1.03%. The six-month inflation rate is 15.75%, and the annual inflation is reported at 44.38%. If you believe it…
We don’t. But we bear the consequences. Salaries, wages, and retirement pensions are calculated based on this flawed inflation measurement by TÜİK.
ENAG, an independent group of economists using the same methodology as TÜİK, reported December inflation at 2.34% and annual inflation at 83.40%.
Since January 2022, I have been calculating inflation not based on TÜİK’s basket of goods and services, but on my own consumption patterns. I call it the “MERİÇ K Inflation.” I share these calculations monthly, a day before TÜİK and ENAG’s announcements, on my Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube accounts. According to my calculations, December inflation was 3.08%, and the annual rate was 86.38%.
While my basket reflects my personal experience and does not represent the entire society, it provides a realistic measure of the general change in prices. Based on this, I believe the real inflation Turkey is experiencing aligns more closely with ENAG’s figure of 83.40%.
Here’s my argument:
Since January 2020, we’ve had two inflation figures: one from TÜİK and one from ENAG. Looking back over these five years:
- According to TÜİK, prices have increased sixfold, with a cumulative five-year inflation rate of 507%.
- According to ENAG, prices have risen 24.6 times, equating to a five-year inflation rate of 2363%.
Now, TÜİK’s latest announcement states that unless the President makes a new adjustment, the minimum retirement pension will be 14,469 liras. Let’s assess this based on the inflation we’ve experienced over the past five years:
In January 2020, the minimum pension was 1,500 liras. To maintain the same purchasing power in 2025:
- TÜİK’s inflation would require this amount to be 9,000 liras. This suggests that AKP, using TÜİK’s manipulated data, claims to have improved retirees’ living standards. But is this true? Retirees even long for the 2020 conditions they once criticized.
- According to ENAG’s inflation, the equivalent purchasing power of 1,500 liras in January 2020 is 36,900 liras today.
In democratic societies where individuals are citizens, not subjects, there is a dialectic relationship between the state and its people that drives societal progress. To ensure this progress, the people must demand their rights and shape politics accordingly. Otherwise, in societies that accept what is given without question, economic misery spreads. A small elite grows wealthy while the rest are reduced to mere subjects of an authoritarian regime.
Retirees are not a burden on society; they are its true architects.
Wealth and the Rights of Retirees
Three philosophers from three different centuries defined wealth as accumulated labor:
- John Locke (1632–1704), a founder of liberal thought, saw labor as the source of property and wealth.
- Adam Smith (1723–1790), the theorist of capitalist economics, built his labor value theory on this idea, identifying labor as the source of wealth.
- Karl Marx (1818–1883), the socialist economist, expanded Smith’s theory to critique capitalism, defining profit and wealth as derived from surplus value created by labor.
Despite their differing ideologies, these thinkers converge on one point: labor, and therefore retirees, have undeniable rights to all accumulated wealth.
Public Ownership and Retirees’ Rights
To strengthen individual rights and create a robust social state, we must redefine public and communal ownership. Public resources—lands, seas, rivers, and natural wealth—belong to all citizens equally. These cannot be privileges for a few elites.
Similarly, infrastructure like roads, power plants, communication networks, and satellites, built through public investment or subsidized by taxpayers, must benefit all citizens equally. For example, telecommunications infrastructure, funded by public taxes, should not generate profits for private companies but instead offer services at cost.
Public assets are not for the ruling elite and their allies but for all citizens, and the primary beneficiaries should be those who generate wealth: workers and retirees.
We must not settle for what we’re given. We must demand what is rightfully ours.
Meriç Köyatası
