75 percent of households have problems covering basic living costs

The average household in 2006 had a monthly income of around 6,000 kuna (820 euros), but there are visible differences between regions. The lowest incomes are in Lika, Kordun, and Banovina (around 4,725 kuna), while the highest are in the Zagreb region, where they rise to approximately 7,650 kuna.

    GfK Croatia has been regularly monitoring income and expenditure trends for households in Croatia since 1993. The latest data provides a snapshot of the situation for the past year, resulting from research on a representative sample of 1,000 households. The research showed that according to the subjective assessment of respondents, the necessary income to meet basic costs/needs is around 8,200 kuna (1,119 euros). Thus, the estimated necessary income still deviates significantly from the actual income. When comparing realized and necessary income, it is found that, on average, the required income is as much as 36% higher than that which is realized/available.

For this gap between available and necessary income, citizens quite “skillfully” use so-called plastic money/cards, cash loans, and authorized overdrafts on current accounts. Just slightly over 9% of households report having incomes higher than necessary (in 2006, this was 5%), and approximately 13% have incomes exactly as much as they need (almost the same as a year ago). It follows that about 3/4 of households have problems covering their monthly expenses. If we now analyze the needs of this group that truly does not have sufficient income, their income would need to be increased by as much as 78% in order to cover all basic living costs.

While all households have expenses for food and utilities, it is interesting to note that around 90% have regular expenses for clothing and footwear, 87% for landline phones, 86% for transportation costs, 85% for mobile phones, 83% for medical services, 64% for durable consumer goods, 61% for some forms of culture and entertainment or recreation, and 50% for tobacco. Only 43% had expenses related to education, and only about 27% regularly set aside something for savings (in a bank and/or at home) or “saved” in the form of a housing loan (16%). Households that have expenses for medical services spend an average of over 160 kuna per month. The expense for mobile phones averages around 250 kuna per month (landline + mobile = about 470 kuna).

On tobacco and cigarettes, around 415 kuna is spent, and on education, just slightly more than 450 kuna per month. The results of the research show that our households still spend a third of their income on food and drink. When housing/utilities costs are added, it turns out that half of the income still goes to meet the most basic existential needs.