The benefit from increasing the minimum wage is greater than the damage from reducing outlays for the pension system resulting from this increase, Finance Minister Marko Primorac told Hina on Thursday.

The minister illustrated this by saying that if the gross minimum wage increases from €700 to €800, this increase of €100 gross means €60 more in the net amount.

He said that citizens would benefit more from receiving higher gross minimum pay than from tax relief in the pension system.

According to data from 2022, 345,000 citizens have a gross monthly wage of below €700, which is below the minimum wage, and those are citizens who do not work full time or are pensioners working several hours a day.

They are entitled to a tax exemption of €300.

The government has so far reduced the taxable portion of the income.

However, those with the lowest wages would not benefit from such a move if we continued reducing the taxable portion, the minister said, explaining that raising wages through interventions in the tax system was limited.

Therefore the government decided to increase the minimum wage to help those with the lowest incomes, the minister said, dismissing a news article in the Jutarnji List daily that no one will get the maximum tax relief of €300.