While the state is announcing a €600 minimum wage for next year, a new calculation by the Centre for Emancipation Policies shows that almost 155,000 dinars a month are needed to live a decent life in Serbia. Interviewees speaking to Danas stress that this gap is particularly evident among young people, whose incomes often fail to keep pace with the real cost of living.
Similar findings emerged from a study on the situation and needs of young people in Serbia conducted by the National Youth Council of Serbia (KOMS). The study shows that almost 70% of young people believe that a salary of more than 130,000 dinars is needed to live decently.
KOMS Secretary General Milica Borjanić told Danas that, according to their research, there is a significant gap between young people’s actual earnings and the real cost of living. “For years, we have been asking young people what they consider to be a sufficient salary to cover basic living needs. Nearly 70% say it is more than 130,000 dinars. Not 130,000, but more than 130,000. However, when we asked how many of them actually earn more than 130,000 dinars, we found that it was only 13%. So there is a very large gap between the actual income needed to ensure a good quality of life and their real incomes and expectations,” Borjanić says.
Vladimir Simović of the Centre for Emancipation Policies shares a similar view, telling Danas that young people are close to giving the right answer to the question of how much is needed to live a decent life in Serbia. “The living wage in Serbia is 154,740 dinars. This is the amount we calculate is needed for a decent life, and so far our calculations have often matched those made by trade unions when they calculate their consumer basket. In a way, young people are close to the right answer as to how much is needed to live a reasonably decent life here,” Simović explains.
Serbia’s minimum wage averages 65,000 dinars in 2026. Labour law expert Mario Reljanović told Danas that the current minimum wage is far below the real cost of living for anyone, and particularly for young people. “The problem is that the minimum wage is determined based on the state’s ability, as the largest employer, to pay the minimum wage, rather than on the economic and, above all, social criteria laid down by law. As a result, negotiations over the minimum wage are practically non-existent: it is imposed by the state, while trade unions and employers have very little say. Resetting the system would have to involve many other factors that are currently not taken into account,” Reljanović explains.
In KOMS’s Alternative Report, young people gave a score of 4.42 to personal or family connections and contacts as one of the most important factors in getting a job.
As Emilija Milenković, a student at the Faculty of Political Sciences, points out, young people do not have the conditions for a decent life in Serbia, particularly, she says, in smaller towns where it is impossible to find a job without a party membership card. “No wonder young people are leaving a country where it is impossible to live a normal and dignified life! Young people have to work multiple jobs while still at university just to afford housing and food, which takes time away from their education. Many cannot afford to live in the city where they study because of the high cost of living. Not to mention young people in smaller towns, in Vranje, where I am from, for example, where you cannot even get a job without a party membership card. This is another reason why young people have taken matters into their own hands. In order to live decently, we first have to drive out the mafia, and with it corruption and theft,” Milenković says.
Source: Danas, 14.08.2026