FAQ and sources
What the index measures, where the data comes from, and how Greece compares with other countries.
Frequently asked questions
How many gyros does the Greek minimum wage buy in 2026?
The 2026 net minimum wage is €792.40 (€920 gross minus 13.87% contributions) and the average gyro price is €4.89. That gives an index of 162 gyros per month.
How much did a gyro cost in 1985 and in 1998?
In 1985 a pita gyro cost about 60 drachmas (range 50-70 GRD), roughly €0.18. In 1998 it cost 200 drachmas, roughly €0.59.
What is the Pita-Gyro Index?
It is the net minimum wage divided by the average price of one pita gyro. It shows how many gyros a monthly wage buys, that is real purchasing power rather than the nominal amount.
How are prices derived for years without documentation?
Documented prices (1985, 1998, 2019-2025) act as anchors. Intermediate years are derived year by year: general CPI plus a constant spread, calibrated so the series lands exactly on the documented prices. No price is invented.
Why are there three derivation scenarios?
The first shows the actual price. The other two are hypothetical: what the gyro would cost if from 1998 it followed only the general CPI, or the official catering sub-index (Eurostat HICP CP11). The comparison shows how far gyro prices outran official inflation.
What are the data sources?
Minimum wage figures come from the Greek Ministry of Labour and WSI/Eurofound, inflation from ELSTAT and the Bank of Greece, catering inflation from Eurostat HICP CP11, and gyro prices from press reports (LiFO, Protagon) plus visitor recollections.
Can I reuse the chart or the data?
Yes. The data is available as CSV under CC BY 4.0, and the chart can be embedded on other sites with the ready-made iframe snippet from the "Embed" button.
How far does the wage go in other countries?
Net minimum wage divided by the price of the local pita-gyro equivalent, 2026.
| Country | Local equivalent | Net wage | Price | Index |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Greece | pita gyro | 792 € | 4.89 € | 162 |
| Germany | döner kebab | 1,560 € | 7.50 € | 208 |
| Spain | kebab durum | 1,050 € | 6.00 € | 175 |
| Portugal | kebab | 740 € | 6.50 € | 114 |
Indicative 2026 figures: net minimum wages (Eurostat, converted to 12 payments) and typical street prices. The Greek figure comes from our own index. This is about orders of magnitude, not an exact comparison.
Sources & assumptions
Bibliography
- EGSSE archive (Government Gazette / taxheaven.gr, ELINYAE)
National General Collective Labour Agreements: minimum wage floors for a single employee with no seniority increments.
- Derivation with wage indexation (ATA) / ELSTAT CPI
Estimate obtained by deflating the 1989 wage backwards using the official annual indexation increases.
- WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece
Official series of the statutory monthly minimum wage (source: Ministry of Labour), 1994-2025.
- Ministry of Labour - press releases & minimum wage decisions
Ministerial Decision 8934/2026 (Gazette 1759/B/27-3-2026): minimum wage of €920 from 1 Apr 2026 (+4.55%).
- LiFO - “What a 1998 souvlaki would cost you today”
Average pita-gyro price in Athens in the late 1990s: 180-220 GRD.
- Protagon - “How the price of souvlaki doubled in five years”
Wrapped pita-gyro prices: 2019 ~€2.00, 2020 €2.50, 2021 €2.70, 2022 €3.20, 2023 €3.30, 2024 €3.80, 2025 €4.70.
- Eleftherotypia 2001 (republished by reader.gr)
2001 price list: chicken pita gyro 530 GRD (€1.56). It refers to a central Athens shop and a premium chicken gyro, so it is used as an upper sanity bound, not as an average price.
- i-diakopes.gr / STAR report
Thessaloniki 2022: pita gyro €3.90-4.00.
- Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece)
Where no documented price exists, the price is derived from the nearest documented price by applying the selected scenario's annual rate (general CPI, actual catering CPI, or implied gyro inflation).
- Eurostat HICP - "Restaurants and hotels" (CP11), Greece
Official catering sub-index, annual average rates of change 1998-2025 (2026 is an estimate).
- Consumer recollections & archival references (1985)
Converging recollections from app visitors and archival price references: a pita gyro cost 50-70 GRD in 1985. The midpoint (60 GRD) is used as the average price.
Calculation assumptions
- Wage = the statutory monthly minimum wage of a single employee with no seniority increments (14 salaries/year; the monthly figure is shown).
- Net = gross minus employee contributions: 16% through 2018, 15.9% in 2019, 14.12% in 2020 and 13.87% from 2021. The minimum wage stays below the tax-free threshold, so no income tax is deducted.
- Where two wage levels applied within a year, the one in force for most of the year is used.
- Where no documented gyro price exists, the price is never invented: it is derived from the nearest documented price using official annual CPI (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) - backwards for 1985-1997 from 1998 and forwards for the remaining years.
- For 1999-2018 the base series uses implied gyro inflation, which is not an official index: it is general CPI plus a constant spread of 4.0 pp/year, calibrated so the 1998→2019 derivation lands exactly on the two documented prices.
- The "actual catering CPI" scenario instead uses the official Eurostat HICP sub-index for "Restaurants and hotels" (CP11, Greece), which rose about 1.8x between 1998 and 2019, versus about 3.4x for the gyro price. The 2026 projection uses that same official rate.
- Every price carries a range: ±10% for documented years (spread across shops/regions, e.g. 180-220 GRD in 1998, €3.80-4.20 today) and ±20% for derived years.
- Drachma conversion: irrevocable rate of 1 € = 340.750 GRD.
- Gyro price = the average price of a wrapped pita gyro in an urban shop; intermediate years are derived with official inflation between the documented anchors.
References per year
| Year | Wage source | Gyro price source | CPI / catering / implied |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1985 | Derivation with wage indexation (ATA) / ELSTAT CPI | Consumer recollections & archival references (1985) | 19.3% / 19.3% / 19.3% |
| 1986 | Derivation with wage indexation (ATA) / ELSTAT CPI | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 23.0% / 23.0% / 23.0% |
| 1987 | Derivation with wage indexation (ATA) / ELSTAT CPI | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 16.4% / 16.4% / 16.4% |
| 1988 | Derivation with wage indexation (ATA) / ELSTAT CPI | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 13.5% / 13.5% / 13.5% |
| 1989 | EGSSE archive (Government Gazette / taxheaven.gr, ELINYAE) | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 13.7% / 13.7% / 13.7% |
| 1990 | EGSSE archive (Government Gazette / taxheaven.gr, ELINYAE) | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 20.4% / 20.4% / 20.4% |
| 1991 | EGSSE archive (Government Gazette / taxheaven.gr, ELINYAE) | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 19.5% / 19.5% / 19.5% |
| 1992 | Derivation with wage indexation (ATA) / ELSTAT CPI | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 15.9% / 15.9% / 15.9% |
| 1993 | EGSSE archive (Government Gazette / taxheaven.gr, ELINYAE) | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 14.4% / 14.4% / 14.4% |
| 1994 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 10.9% / 10.9% / 10.9% |
| 1995 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 8.9% / 8.9% / 8.9% |
| 1996 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 8.2% / 8.2% / 8.2% |
| 1997 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 5.5% / 5.5% / 5.5% |
| 1998 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | LiFO - “What a 1998 souvlaki would cost you today” | 4.8% / 7.4% / 9.0% |
| 1999 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 2.6% / 6.4% / 6.7% |
| 2000 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 3.2% / 4.6% / 7.3% |
| 2001 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 3.4% / 5.2% / 7.5% |
| 2002 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 3.6% / 6.7% / 7.7% |
| 2003 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 3.5% / 4.8% / 7.6% |
| 2004 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 2.9% / 4.3% / 7.0% |
| 2005 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 3.5% / 3.1% / 7.6% |
| 2006 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 3.2% / 2.6% / 7.3% |
| 2007 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 2.9% / 4.0% / 7.0% |
| 2008 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 4.2% / 5.0% / 8.4% |
| 2009 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 1.2% / 2.5% / 5.2% |
| 2010 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 4.7% / 2.8% / 8.9% |
| 2011 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 3.3% / 1.9% / 7.4% |
| 2012 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 1.5% / 1.4% / 5.6% |
| 2013 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | -0.9% / -2.1% / 3.1% |
| 2014 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | -1.3% / -1.6% / 2.6% |
| 2015 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | -1.7% / 1.4% / 2.2% |
| 2016 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | -0.8% / 1.9% / 3.2% |
| 2017 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 1.1% / 2.2% / 5.1% |
| 2018 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 0.6% / 1.9% / 4.6% |
| 2019 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Protagon - “How the price of souvlaki doubled in five years” | 0.3% / 0.8% / 4.3% |
| 2020 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Protagon - “How the price of souvlaki doubled in five years” | -1.2% / -1.3% / 2.8% |
| 2021 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Protagon - “How the price of souvlaki doubled in five years” | 1.2% / -0.6% / 5.2% |
| 2022 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Protagon - “How the price of souvlaki doubled in five years” | 9.6% / 8.7% / 14.0% |
| 2023 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Protagon - “How the price of souvlaki doubled in five years” | 3.5% / 6.5% / 7.6% |
| 2024 | WSI Minimum Wage Database - Greece | Protagon - “How the price of souvlaki doubled in five years” | 2.6% / 6.3% / 6.7% |
| 2025 | Ministry of Labour - press releases & minimum wage decisions | Protagon - “How the price of souvlaki doubled in five years” | 2.8% / 5.6% / 6.9% |
| 2026 | Ministry of Labour - press releases & minimum wage decisions | Derivation with official inflation (ELSTAT / Bank of Greece) | 2.4% / 4.0% / 6.5% |