Not everything is always as it seems. My grandmother taught me this wisdom as a young child. And when it comes to politics, economics or finance, I’ve come to understand that the rule almost always applies. A case in point might be the allegedly high Polish salaries. Yes, if we look at the average figure, it seems that people in this country are not doing badly at all. But the reality is far more complex.

If one wants to know the real truth, one must learn to perceive all the details of a given situation. I’m glad this was drilled into my head from a young age. Recently I was talking to a friend about going shopping in Poland, where you can get many things cheaper than here. We turned the debate to the economy there and he started telling me that he had read on the internet how high Polish salaries are. It was immediately clear to me that he was wrong.

Average isn’t everything.

In Poland, the average salary in October last year was 8 990 PLN. This figure is admittedly high and many people think that Poles live like in a fairy tale. But in reality, the figure is inflated by a narrow group of top earners. The real mirror of how much people in the country earn is not the average, but the so-called median, the middle value of all the data.

At the same time, it was only PLN 7 414 gross. In practice, this means that more than half of working Poles do not actually earn more than this lower figure. It is very important to remember that this is also a gross wage. The money paid out is therefore even slightly lower.

The national average is close to 9,000 zlotys. But most Poles earn far less. The reality is simply not what it seems. ━━ The national average is close to 9,000 zlotys. But most Poles earn far less. The reality is simply not what it seems. ( Source: Lukasz Radziejewski /  Unsplash+ )

The huge difference between the mean and the median

According to the analysis, the median wage was a staggering 17.5% lower than the average wage last year. This is a clear signal that wealth is not evenly distributed in the labour market. Furthermore, it is clear that people working for large corporations have far more money than employees in micro-enterprises. In firms with more than 1 000 employees, the financial situation is usually stable. By contrast, half of the employees of the smallest companies in Poland receive the legal minimum wage. Their average salary is only PLN 6 054.

In October last year, 10% of the lowest paid earned an average of only PLN 4 666. On the other hand, the 10% with the highest salary were earning PLN 14 310. The difference is huge and even a layman can see it. Even my friend, who thought that people in Poland were well off, realised how wrong he was after reading these figures. Other factors also influence the difference in salaries:

  • Women VS men: while the median male salary in Poland last year was only PLN 7,595, for women it is only PLN 7,230.
  • Age differences: The labour market values people with established experience the most, with the highest median of PLN 7,701 recorded for the 35-44 age group.
  • Public VS private sector: the median salary in the public sector reached a staggering PLN 8 698. In the private sector it was only PLN 6 727.

“GDP is growing, but wealth is being distributed in such a way that inequality is also growing,” comments Paweł Bukowski, an economist and co-author of the book Nierówności po Polsku.