Greece Is Richer. So Why Do So Many Greeks Still Feel Poor? - Dnews

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News In English<br>28.06.2026 06:33<br>UPD 28.06.2026 06:33

Greece Is Richer. So Why Do So Many Greeks Still Feel Poor?

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Φωτογραφία: AP/Philippos Christou

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Greece's long economic nightmare may be over on paper, but for millions of households the recovery remains elusive.

New data from the European Central Bank show that the average net wealth of Greek households has climbed to €117,936, a rise of 23% from the lows reached after Russia's invasion of Ukraine triggered another bout of economic uncertainty across Europe. Yet average household wealth is still nearly one-fifth below the level recorded in 2009, before Greece's sovereign debt crisis plunged the country into one of the deepest recessions experienced by an advanced economy in peacetime.

The figures reveal a paradox at the heart of modern Greece: an economy that is once again generating wealth, but a society where a majority of people continue to struggle financially.

Total household wealth has rebounded to around €1tn, helped by soaring property prices, a strong recovery in Greek stocks and lower government borrowing costs after the country regained investment-grade status. Even so, Greece remains far from the days before the crisis, when household wealth exceeded €1.5tn.

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The scale of the destruction that followed the debt crisis was extraordinary. Between 2009 and the trough of the bailout years in 2016, average household wealth fell by roughly 35%, wiping out more than a third of Greek families' assets.

The Bank of Greece has described the period as a form of terra incognita – an economic collapse without precedent in modern Europe. In peacetime, it can be compared only to the Great Depression in the United States. But while the US economy had regained its pre-crash output seven years after 1929, Greece has yet to return to the levels of economic activity it enjoyed before the crisis. Nearly two decades after its economy peaked in 2007, the country's real GDP remains almost 14% below that level.

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By several conventional measures, Greece is a success story. Since 2018, the economy has grown faster than the eurozone average. Foreign direct investment reached €11.9bn last year, the highest level in more than a decade, and the country has finally exited the European Union's macroeconomic imbalance procedure after years of scrutiny.

Yet prosperity has returned unevenly.

Greek GDP per capita is still about 25% below its 2009 peak and roughly one-third lower than the average across the European Union. Productivity – a key determinant of living standards – remains barely half the EU average.

Perhaps more importantly, the gains from the recovery have accrued disproportionately to those who already had assets.

As property and financial markets have rebounded, wealthier households have benefited from rising asset prices, while lower-income families have found it increasingly difficult to keep up with the cost of living. Economists often describe this as a "snowball effect": those with wealth can invest, diversify and generate further returns, while those with limited assets remain vulnerable to economic shocks and are often forced to dip into their savings simply to cover everyday expenses.

Research by Greece's Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE) highlights the growing disconnect between economic indicators and social reality.

On one hand, standard measures of inequality have improved. The Gini coefficient, one of the most widely used measures of income inequality, has fallen from 34.2 in 2015 to 31.6 in 2025.

On the other hand, nearly 68% of Greek households say they struggle to make ends meet, compared with just 19% across the EU. Almost 35% of Greeks consider themselves poor, while more than four in five believe income disparities in the country are excessively large.

The findings suggest that inequality in Greece is about far more than income.

Single-parent families and households with several dependent children remain among the most vulnerable to poverty. Young people aged between 16 and 24 face the highest risk of economic hardship, while the gender pay gap remains stubbornly persistent.

Even in Athens, the country's wealthiest region, inequality is among the highest.

The labour market has improved markedly since the darkest years of the crisis, with...