A small test: how many people in Croatia manage to earn at least the average income in the EU each month? No one among my approximately 30 respondents, mostly people working in the economy and politics who themselves earn more than the European average of 1600 euros per month, answered this question correctly. Their miscalculations were colossal, and none estimated that there are fewer than 100,000 people in Croatia earning at least the European average.
We live in delusion. No one guessed that less than two percent of employees in Croatia manage to earn the average European income. And that layer does not want to believe what the real picture of the society we live in is.
The harsh truth is that (according to the latest data from the Ministry of Finance), out of 1,561,667 taxpayers in 32 categories of net income, only a little over 30,000 achieve the average income in the EU, which is less than two percent.
If you read only the title before reading the article and tried to conclude for yourself how many there are, and your income is above the EU average, you are probably among the group of users who are, conditionally speaking, deluded regarding the actual state of the economy in Croatia.
Managerial income
Of course, to determine the real state, we should also calculate the real living costs in relation to the EU averages, but here too we encounter several paradoxes related to housing costs, so it is better not to delve into that topic. Simply put, the average income in the EU can be claimed by as many residents in Croatia as there are in a city like Velika Gorica (without suburban settlements). If you want a bit more statistics related to net income, I can tell you how many people receive a salary that is considered the starting personal income in management on average in EU countries – 3,242 people have personal incomes greater than 4,000 euros.
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If you want us to also make a cross-section of pensions in society, because in a developed society the category of consumers also includes retirees, then the data is even more disheartening than when it comes to personal income. The average pension in the EU in Croatia is received by 5,853 out of a total of 1,126,473 retirees, and the average is below the lowest pension in the EU. Or, more precisely, the average pension is close to the poverty line, which is already difficult to measure, but according to some relevant methods, it amounts to 60 percent of the median household income, which is about 2,000 kuna per month for an individual. Perhaps that is enough statistics for now, but the purpose of this article is to perhaps break the paradigm of how rich or poor we are from the perspective of the average reader of Lider, for whom I am somehow sure is not among the citizens with average incomes in Croatia.
Whose debt is my company’s?
One owner coldly stated that the debt of the company that entered pre-bankruptcy proceedings is not his, but the company’s. And his personal and family consumption has not decreased because, you see, he has ‘other income’ that allows him to maintain the same lifestyle as before.
People with higher incomes have great delusions about wealth or poverty because, unfortunately, they start from their own income and do not want to believe what the real picture of the society we live in is. In endless discussions about what our society is like as a whole, in every numerical argument, the majority of the ‘rich’ do not want to believe and ask questions that become standard: Is the gray economy included in the calculation? And how can it be included in the calculation without that data supporting an even more disheartening state? The gray economy, whatever it may be in this context, unfortunately, is also an indicator of the state of society and the relationships between individuals.
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Once I heard a businessman coldly say about his company in trouble that entered pre-bankruptcy proceedings: ‘That is not my debt, but the company’s.’ Otherwise, that would be true if it were not a company that was/is in his 100 percent ownership. I witnessed that his and his family’s consumption did not decrease because, you see, he has ‘other income’ that allows him to maintain the same lifestyle as before; the debts that remain are the company’s debts. And that is the picture of our society because in a normal situation, entering into business problems that can realistically happen to anyone is not a shame, but it is not a space for praise either, and certainly not for boasting, so in this context, I do not want to write about all forms of income that are outside the context because they make up the entirety of the problem in society.
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The figures on personal incomes are harsh and position us on the EU map where we truly are. We simply must be better, work harder, be more ambitious, but also humbler than we are in society, especially those with incomes above the EU average because we are few. Otherwise, I applied my little research from the beginning of the article to two ministers from different governments. I must say that they too are deluded when it comes to the number of Croatian ‘average EU residents’, but I want to understand them because they live according to the paraphrased statement of Albert Einstein about hope: ‘Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.’ The missing part in the mental framework from the aforementioned statement is: ‘Do not stop asking questions.’
