Renting in Valletta costs 97% of the monthly minimum wage – report

Renting a one-bedroom apartment in Valletta would eat up the entire paycheck of individual earning Malta’s minimum wage. And yet, they might be grateful not to be working and living in places like Prague, Sarajevo and Belgrade.

In the Serbian capital, one-bedroom flats go for 180 per cent of the minimum wage. In other words, not only is renting alone completely off the table for workers in this income bracket, as it is in Malta, but it does not even work when sharing the space with a partner on a similar income.

In fact, a couple earning the minimum wage in Belgrade, Serbia, would only have 10 per cent of their combined income to spend on food, bills, healthcare, fuel, education, leisure, and anything else they need to live, apart from shelter.

The remarkable figures emerge from an analysis conducted by the European Correspondent, which looked at the affordability of each of Europe’s capital cities for those earning the respective country’s minimum wage.

The analysis puts Valletta in the middle tier of affordability, comparing well to the ultra-expensive cities mentioned above, although remaining considerably more expensive than major European capitals like Berlin, Paris and Madrid, where a one-bedroom apartment would respectively take 61 per cent, 76 per cent and 79 per cent of a minimum monthly salary.

Meanwhile, Brussels and The Hague, capitals of Belgium and The Netherlands respectively, stand out as the most affordable cities for minimum wage earners: putting a roof over your head ‘only’ takes up 47 per cent and 56 per cent, respectively, of the minimum monthly income.