Malta's minimum wage may have increased this year, but new data shows that its standing compared to other EU countries has dropped.

Malta's national minimum wage rose between January 2024 and January 2025 from €925 to €961 per month, data published by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions showed.

The minimum wage increase in Malta was 3.9%. However, Malta slipped down the rankings of EU countries.

In January 2024, Malta had the 12th highest minimum wage in the EU out of the countries that have a minimum wage. In January 2025 however, Malta had the 15th highest.

The countries which surpassed Malta's minimum wage in January 2025, were Lithuania, Greece and Croatia.

In Croatia, the minimum wage rose by 15.5%, in Lithuania, it rose by 12.3% and in Greece by 6.4%.

The EU countries with the highest minimum wages are Luxembourg with €2,638, Ireland with €2,282 per month and the Netherlands with €2,193 per month, the data showed.

The countries with the lowest minimum wages are Bulgaria, with €551 per month, Hungary with €707 and Latvia with €740 per month, it showed. Austria, Denmark, Finland, Italy and Sweden are not included in the statistics "as they do not have a national minimum wage," it said.

The minimum wage rates do not account for state-provided benefits which are aimed at helping those on low incomes, such as in-work benefits and an additional annual Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) increases.

What we need to take this data into context with is also how Malta's cost of living has increased.  While inflation has been more controlled than in other European countries, there are certain areas where the increase in certain prices has far outstripped the increase in Malta's wages, particularly its minimum wage.

Property is a good example: the price to purchase a property has increased significantly over the last decade, rendering it effectively impossible for somebody on a minimum wage or even slightly above it to even dream of affording to buy a place to live in.

Renting is no better: prices again have increased, and today's market is such that in effect, anyone on a minimum wage has to either come close to starving in order to afford a place for him or herself, or have to rent simply a room.

It is a fact that Malta's poverty levels, despite the economic prosperity that the government has consistently boasted that it created, has not decreased.  If anything there are more people in poverty now than before: the percentage may have remained roughly the same, but in numerical terms, the number of people in poverty has increased.

A significant part of that is down to the fact wages have remained stagnant when compared with the increase in prices in some key areas. 

The government has acted and tried to do some things: first and foremost by increasing the minimum wage itself, but also by introducing measures to keep inflation in check by, for example, subsidising fuel and energy.

But these are reactionary measures: the government and the country is playing catch-up with prices which have had a significant head start in which they increased.

Ultimately it's going to take a lot of work to make up that ground.