✓ On the one hand, you listen to the citizens in the bazaar and the market; the difficulty of making a living and the problems caused by it…
✓ On the other hand, you look at the results of the survey conducted jointly by TurkStat and the Central Bank; the citizens are pessimistic, but a little pessimistic, not complaining too much about their situation…
✓ Either the citizens are exaggerating their situation or this survey does not cover the citizens who cry for help.
TurkStat and the Central Bank jointly conduct a consumer tendency survey every month and a consumer confidence index is constructed from the results of this survey. The November results of this survey were announced yesterday. If you are thinking, “How could the November results come out when only two-thirds of the month has passed?” you are right, but the survey is conducted in the first half of the month. This is the method. Developments in the second half of October are also influential in November’s results, and the remaining period of this month will be reflected in the December survey. Therefore, there is nothing wrong with the method.
The important thing, of course, is the result…
In November, consumer confidence increased by 1.1 percent compared to October and became 75.5. To understand what 75.5 means, it should be noted that the consumer confidence index takes values between 0-200; values below 100 indicate pessimism while values above 100 indicate optimism.
In November, the index was 75.5 and the consumer is now in the pessimism zone, meaning that he/she does not have confidence in the economy. However, at least compared to the previous month, confidence has increased slightly.
The index shows that the current financial situation of households improved by 2.7 percent in November compared to October.
The index for the financial situation in the next twelve months also indicates that an improvement is expected. The rate is 2.6 percent. Again, the rate of improvement expectation in the index for the general economic situation in the next twelve months is 0.6 percent.
There is a decline in only one of the four main items that make up the consumer confidence index. The index showing the expectation to spend on durable goods in the next twelve months decreased by 0.6 percent.
Pessimistic but slightly pessimistic!
The average consumer confidence index for the last twenty years is 88. In fact, the number of months in which the optimism threshold of 100 has been exceeded in these two decades, i.e. in about 240 months, are no more than five.
But the average of 88 points to a level that can be called “pessimistic but slightly pessimistic”.
When you look at what is said in the bazaar, in the market, on the street when a microphone is handed to you, you look at the complaints, and it is very clear that what is said is not reflected in this index. If what is said into the microphones were reflected in the index, we would probably only see half of that 88. Because the street points to such a terrible picture.
Either the opinion of those who paint that terrible picture is not reflected in the index or that picture is exaggerated. Another possibility, of course, is that those who actually live in such difficult conditions are in the minority.
But can it be said that those living in such difficult conditions are in the minority? On the contrary, they constitute the majority.
- More than half of the working people are minimum wage earners…
- Pensioners are miserable, especially labor pensioners…
- Average rent has exceeded income, hence a cap on rent increases has been imposed, but it is hardly enforceable, it cannot be fully implemented anyway…
- Pricing behavior has deteriorated tremendously, especially in the services sector, a fact that the Central Bank has repeatedly pointed out…
- Improving the quality of education is understood as increasing the number of universities, but university graduates cannot find jobs because they do not have any skills, and even if they do, there are no jobs… Industrialists cannot find intermediate staff because vocational high schools have been neglected…
This is the picture, this is the material at hand! While this is the reality, the citizens live in a “slightly pessimistic” way!
Hard to believe it! To be honest, it is impossible not to wonder who is included in this survey, in which income group or education level people are included.
We know the sample size of the survey; 4,884 households and individuals over the age of 16 in these households are covered. This is a survey and this number of households is sufficient, it is not expected to conduct a study with hundreds of thousands of households, but to what extent 4,884 households represent the average of Turkey in terms of income distribution is important.
