According to the latest survey measuring purchasing power, Poland ranked 29th among 42 European countries. Poland is followed by Hungary (30th position) and Romania (31st), while the Czech Republic ranks higher (22nd). Due to inflation, real purchasing power in the vast majority of countries is now lower than it was a year ago.

“Poland has dropped one position, to 29th place in the purchasing power measurement of 42 European countries”, according to the GfK Purchasing Power Europe 2022 survey.

GfK’s compilation clearly shows how big the differences are in terms of purchasing power among the countries of the Old Continent. In 2022, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Luxembourg top the list – as they did a year ago. Kosovo, Moldova and Ukraine are ranked at the end of the list.

The survey showed that in 2022, Europeans have around EUR 11.1 trillion to spend on food, housing, services, energy costs, insurance, holidays, communication and other consumer goods. This corresponds to an average per capita purchasing power of €16,344 (PLN 76,810, at the euro exchange rate of PLN 4.7 on 2 November this year), a nominal increase of 5.8 % compared to the previous year.

“However, this increase does not take into account inflation, which varies from country to country in 2022. For the vast majority of countries, real purchasing power was therefore lower than it was a year ago”, noted the report’s authors.

According to the study, the purchasing power in Poland amounted to EUR 9,254 (PLN 43,490). This result is on average 500 euros better than in Hungary and 1,200 euros higher than in Romania. The average purchasing power per capita in Poland corresponds to 56 % of the European average.  Only a few years ago, the distance from Europe’s richest countries was much larger.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński