In most countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), purchasing power has declined due to sky-high inflation. Only a handful of countries saw real wage growth, with Belgium leading the way. This is evident from statistics published today by the OECD.
Consumer prices in 2022 rose sharply. This is partly due to the recovery after the corona crisis and the unprecedented energy prices as a result of the war in Ukraine. In the OECD, inflation peaked at an average of 10.7 percent in October.
Life became more expensive and that was clearly noticeable in the purchasing power of the inhabitants of the countries in the OECD. Compared to the first quarter of 2022, real wages were 3.8 percent lower on average in the first three months of this year. Hungarians (-15.6 percent), Latvians (-13.4 percent) and Czechs (-10.4 percent) lose the most purchasing power.
Only four countries went against the grain and saw real wages rise. Belgium – with an increase of 2.9 percent – is the absolute outlier. This is due to the automatic indexation of wages. Growth was limited in the Netherlands (+0.4 percent) and Israel (+0.6 percent), and purchasing power rose by 1.7 percent in Costa Rica.
In nominal terms, three other countries experienced higher wage increases than Belgium (+10.1 percent). These are Lithuania (+13.6 percent), Estonia (+11.4 percent) and Poland (+10.8 percent). Because inflation in those countries was still considerably higher than in Belgium, residents there generally lost purchasing power (respectively -4.9 percent, -5.8 percent and -7 percent).
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