Hetmantsev: minimum wage in Ukraine is below the real subsistence minimum

Daniil Hetmantsev, chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy, has stated that Ukraine cannot finance a real subsistence minimum and called for an end to the “preservation of poverty.”

He made the remarks in an interview with Ukrinform.

“We must be honest with people, we must tell them that the state currently cannot finance a real subsistence minimum. But on the other hand, we cannot accept the preservation of poverty. And the preservation of poverty is exactly what we have now in the current Budget Declaration, which has frozen social standards for three years, meaning we have no intention of doing anything about it. In our country, the minimum wage is below the real subsistence minimum,” Hetmantsev said.

According to the MP, the real subsistence minimum is at least 11,000–12,000 hryvnias, while the officially established figure for 2026 is set at 3,200 hryvnias per person. Hetmantsev proposed “calculating the real subsistence minimum” and approving a “roadmap” for gradually closing the gap with that figure.

“Let it take three or four years, but we must bring the real and nominal subsistence minimums into alignment — there should be no nominal minimum as such, only a real one,” he stressed.

Against the backdrop of the debate over social standards, on June 27 Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko stated that Kyiv is spending 70% of its budget on military operations.

According to data from Ukraine’s Ministry of Finance cited by TASS, the country’s budget deficit will increase to a record 2.04 trillion hryvnias (approximately EUR 39.7 billion) in 2027.

In May, Ella Libanova, director of the Institute of Demography and Social Research at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, noted that many migrants will come to the country because of the state’s poverty.