Name: The Pita-Gyro Index - Greek minimum wage and gyro prices, 1976-2026
Creator: Gyronomics
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Question 1

If wages track inflation, why do they buy less?

Accepted Answer

General CPI and a single product price are different denominators. From 2008 to 2026, series income after contributions and before income tax multiplied by 1.36, general CPI by 1.32 and the calculated classic price by 2.77. Purchasing power is approximately 435 → 214 classic gyros per month, on an annual-income-divided-by-12 basis. These are Gyronomics calculations, not official wage or living-standard statistics. The historical series includes observations, regulated prices, estimates and adjustments. A comparison including 2026 uses a provisional annual CPI assumption. The gap page allows both endpoints to be selected, with sources, different product units and detailed exports. It does not assume every period has the same outcome.

Question 2

How many gyros does the Greek minimum wage buy in 2026?

Accepted Answer

The 2026 reference wage is €919.72 per month, after contributions and before income tax, on a 12-month basis: €910 gross minus 13.37% employee contributions gives €788.33 per payment. The 14 payments, including bonuses and holiday pay, are spread over 12 months. With a reference classic gyro price of €4.30, the division gives approximately 214 classic gyros per month. The price range corresponds to 194-238 classic gyros. The price combines sources and estimates in the series; it is not a representative market census.

Question 3

What is the Pita-Gyro Index?

Accepted Answer

It is the minimum wage after contributions and before tax, using annual income divided by 12, divided by the reference price of a classic gyro. It is calculated for every year from 1976 to 2026. The era price is rescaled to the present-day product using assumptions about weight and composition. The index therefore attempts a comparable measure of purchasing power in one product. The original price and comparison in era gyros remain available.

Question 4

Why a gyro and not something else?

Accepted Answer

Because it combines three things that rarely coexist: it is a standardized product with a fairly stable composition, it has existed continuously since the 1970s, and its price is frequently recorded in press reports, price regulations and consumer memory. It is also sensitive to food, energy and labour costs, acting as a miniature cost-of-living index. The Economist's Big Mac Index follows the same logic.

Question 5

What is a "classic gyro" and what is an "era gyro"?

Accepted Answer

The classic gyro is the model’s fixed reference product: pork gyro, fries, tzatziki, tomato and onion. Its reference weight is a definition, not a measured market median. The era gyro uses the recorded or estimated price of the product sold at the time. Rescaling to a classic wrap depends on assumptions about historical weight and composition.

Question 6

Why is the index based on the classic gyro rather than the wrap of each era?

Accepted Answer

Rescaling attempts to compare a fixed product when weight and composition change. Without a historical series of weighings, the result depends on assumptions. The comparison of era prices remains useful and should be read alongside the adjusted comparison.

Question 7

How is the classic-equivalent rescaling computed?

Accepted Answer

Historical meat weights and changes in composition are model assumptions, not a series of market measurements. The assumed peak and decline in portion size need verification. The present-day weight defines the reference product. The era price refers to the wrap sold at the time; the classic price and weight-adjusted index depend on these assumptions. For each year we compute a "classic equivalence" factor. 70 percent of the factor comes from the ratio of that era's meat grams to today's (~88 g), because meat dominates the wrap's cost. The remaining 30% covers the accompaniments (fries, tzatziki, etc.) and grows as fries become standard. In 1976 the factor is about 0.50, meaning two wraps of the era match one modern classic. The era price is divided by the factor to get the "classic price", and the index is recomputed with it. The two indices coincide ONLY in 2026, the reference year, where the factor is 1 by definition. In the years when the portion exceeds today's the factor passes 1, so the classic index comes out HIGHER than the era index.

Question 8

When did the gyro become the classic we know today?

Accepted Answer

No single transition date has been established for the whole market. The eras on the classic-gyro page describe the transition assumed by the model. The assumed portion peak and subsequent shrinkage require independent measurements to verify.

Question 9

How are prices derived for years without documentation?

Accepted Answer

Years with a price input graded A or B (1977-1978, 1980, 1983-1984, 1989, 1998, 2000-2002, 2011, 2015, 2019-2026) include market sources, regulated prices and estimates. Other prices are not all derived by the same formula: the series uses interpolation between inputs, price-index adjustments and pass-through or rounding rules. An input can itself be an estimate. Each year page identifies its actual rule, dependencies and limitations. The full chain is also available on the "Index calculations" page.

Question 10

Why are there three derivation scenarios?

Accepted Answer

The base series combines price sources, adjustments and estimates. The other two series are hypothetical: what the gyro price would be if it followed only general inflation or the official catering price index from the selected starting year. They start from that year's base-series value. The comparison measures the difference between these paths; it does not establish the causes of the price change.

Question 11

What is the regulated price era of 1976-1989?

Accepted Answer

During that period the wrap's price was under state price regulation: the 1977 regulated price in Chania (8.50 GRD) was a legal ceiling, lower than the real market price. The break is 1989, but not in the way it sounds: Market Order 14/1989 (article 201) does NOT abolish regulation - it replaces the fixed ceiling with a formula tied to the cost of meat, so from then on the regulated price follows costs instead of suppressing them. A newspaper report from the same year puts the two levels side by side, 65 GRD against 70-80 GRD, and that is one of the two measurements of the uplift. The second is older and cleaner: the Makedonia report of 24 Oct 1976 gives, in the same text, the new ceiling (7.50 GRD) and the price already prevailing in the market (8 GRD). The factor we apply is the mean of the two. The same order states that its prices apply to Attica and Thessaloniki and that other regions may not exceed them - which is why raising the Chania figure is the direction the law itself dictates. The uncertainty band for the era stays widened, and those years carry a "regulated" badge in the data table.

Question 12

Why are the 2019-2025 prices corrected for geographic bias?

Accepted Answer

Part of the 2019-2025 price series comes from a retrospective report on a Pagrati shop. The model uses a geographic adjustment to produce a comparable reference price. The factor changes from 1.08 through 2022 to 1.00 from 2025. Because it varies over time, it also affects the rate of price change; the source's rate is not preserved unchanged. Applying this factor historically is an assumption, and local sources do not constitute a representative national sample. Each year page shows its sources and adjustments separately.

Question 13

How much did a gyro cost in 1989 and in 1998?

Accepted Answer

In 1989 Market Order 14/1989 replaced the fixed ceiling with a cost-linked formula; it did not abolish regulation. The source records a regulated price of 65 GRD and a market level of 70-80 GRD. The 1998 wrap is estimated at 280 GRD with a 200-360 GRD modelling range. It is not a directly measured price or a confidence interval. An earlier backward projection from the euro-campaign price gave about 365 GRD, outside the range, and the campaign date remains under review. Both year pages distinguish source prices, calculations and conversion to a classic gyro.

Question 14

How are visitor price reports used?

Accepted Answer

Visitors submit prices they remember by year and region, and the reports are publicly visible on the "Prices" page. They do NOT enter the index: they change no price in the series and they move no year's confidence grade. They act as a separate comparison layer - showing whether the series agrees with what people remember, and revealing geographic differences. The "Prices" page also carries a tool showing what WOULD happen if they were blended at some weight: that is a simulation, not something applied.

Question 15

The index tracks the minimum wage. What about the mean and the median?

Accepted Answer

Both are measured, on the same basis and in the same unit, on their own "Mean and median" page. The finding is that the loss is not a minimum-wage story: between 2000 and 2025 the mean wage loses 51.9% of its purchasing power in classic gyros and the minimum 46.6%. The measured median has points from 2006 to 2022, but is compared only across waves with one sector classification, 2010 to 2022: there it loses 41.0% against 39.7% for the minimum. The reason is that the minimum wage grew 2.0-fold while the classic gyro price grew 3.7-fold. The mean is the OECD average wage (Taxing Wages) and the median comes from the Structure of Earnings Survey. 2006 uses a different sector classification (NACE Rev. 1.1) and 2022 a new method, survey plus administrative data. Both new lines start later than the Index, because the same-definition data we hold for Greece start in 2000, and nothing is interpolated.

Question 16

What are the data sources?

Accepted Answer

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 CP11.1.1, and gyro prices from press reports (LiFO, Protagon) and price surveys covering six cities. Visitor reports are NOT a source of the index: they are shown separately, as a comparison layer. Each year is graded A-D for confidence based on the number and quality of its sources, and the grade is shown in the data table.

Question 17

Can I reuse the chart or the data?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The data is available as CSV under CC BY 4.0, with explicit units in every column (era prices and classic-equivalent ones). The chart can be embedded on other sites with the ready-made iframe snippet from the "Embed" button. For citing it in a paper or article, the "Whitepaper" page includes a ready-made cite-as block and full methodology documentation.

Year	Wage	Gyro	Index (gyros per month)	Range from price bounds
1976	15.70 €	0.050 €	314	231–491
1977	18.18 €	0.056 €	325	239–505
1978	22.44 €	0.064 €	351	257–551
1979	25.93 €	0.075 €	346	254–539
1980	31.47 €	0.091 €	346	257–530
1981	39.17 €	0.108 €	363	269–558
1982	60.28 €	0.127 €	475	351–733
1983	67.96 €	0.146 €	465	403–551
1984	85.52 €	0.174 €	491	429–575
1985	100.88 €	0.200 €	504	373–779
1986	111.52 €	0.242 €	461	342–708
1987	123.11 €	0.272 €	453	336–695
1988	142.36 €	0.299 €	476	353–733
1989	169.01 €	0.335 €	505	472–541
1990	197.65 €	0.409 €	483	386–645
1991	224.34 €	0.481 €	466	373–622
1992	249.04 €	0.554 €	450	359–598
1993	273.55 €	0.621 €	440	352–587
1994	308.09 €	0.679 €	454	363–605
1995	336.54 €	0.747 €	451	360–600
1996	363.52 €	0.812 €	448	358–596
1997	391.98 €	0.848 €	462	370–616
1998	413.07 €	0.898 €	460	358–644
1999	427.79 €	1.021 €	419	349–524
2000	445.94 €	1.114 €	400	356–458
2001	460.66 €	1.179 €	391	355–434
2002	485.19 €	1.230 €	394	326–418
2003	509.60 €	1.280 €	398	332–498
2004	535.73 €	1.328 €	403	336–504
2005	567.09 €	1.373 €	413	344–516
2006	601.72 €	1.427 €	422	351–527
2007	634.39 €	1.480 €	429	357–536
2008	673.91 €	1.551 €	435	362–543
2009	712.17 €	1.591 €	448	373–560
2010	724.77 €	1.674 €	433	361–541
2011	728.74 €	1.750 €	416	362–490
2012	597.78 €	1.781 €	336	280–420
2013	570.94 €	1.769 €	323	269–403
2014	574.36 €	1.757 €	327	272–409
2015	577.78 €	1.830 €	316	275–371
2016	575.78 €	1.899 €	303	253–379
2017	574.36 €	1.969 €	292	243–365
2018	574.36 €	1.996 €	288	240–360
2019	632.89 €	2.070 €	306	278–340
2020	640.75 €	2.109 €	304	264–357
2021	651.26 €	2.315 €	281	256–313
2022	698.89 €	2.679 €	261	237–290
2023	766.95 €	2.986 €	257	223–302
2024	821.46 €	3.605 €	228	207–253
2025	876.77 €	4.103 €	214	194–237
2026	919.72 €	4.300 €	214	194–238

Vary	Cases	Peak years
Prices only	4	1985, 1989
Wage only	2	1989
Composition only	7	1982, 1985, 1989
Joint	56	1982, 1984, 1985, 1989

Year	Price	VAT	Ex-VAT	Selected index
1977	0.056 €	0.0%	0.056 €	325
1990	0.409 €	8.0%	0.379 €	483
1998	0.898 €	8.0%	0.831 €	460
2002	1.230 €	8.0%	1.139 €	394
2010	1.674 €	10.5%	1.515 €	433
2011	1.750 €	16.3%	1.505 €	416
2015	1.830 €	18.0%	1.551 €	316
2020	2.109 €	17.6%	1.793 €	304
2026	4.300 €	13.0%	3.805 €	214

Gyronomics - The Pita-Gyro Index

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