Turkey’s inflation tops 80% as poverty deepens
Even though Turkey’s economy continued to expand in the second quarter, the share of payments to employees dropped to the lowest level since Erdogan’s party came to power two decades ago.
With presidential and parliamentary polls less than a year away, Turkey’s government has bet on growth to contain popular grievances, but runaway inflation and a foreign-currency crunch is producing deeper poverty.
Consumer prices in Turkey rose 1.46% from July to August, official data showed Monday, with annual inflation surging to a 24-year high of 80.21%.
Inflation has soared since September 2021 amid the slump of the Turkish lira, fueled by unorthodox rate cuts by the central bank. The surge in global energy and commodity prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February has only made matters worse.
Heralding further inflationary pressures, the Turkish authorities announced fresh price hikes on gas and electricity on Sept. 1 — around 20% for households and around 50% for enterprises.
