The sesame-covered simit, a popular street bread often eaten with tea, has become 20% more expensive in Istanbul: it now costs 30 lira, up from 25. Earlier in the year, its price had already risen from 15 to 20 lira. Bakers cited higher costs for flour, sesame and yeast, as well as increased business expenses.
Sözcü compares today’s prices with a calculation President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made in a 1993 speech, when he was an opposition politician. He used the cost of tea and simit to describe the expenses of a five-person family against a low minimum wage. The article recalls that speech amid the current price increases.
A cup of tea outside the home now starts at 50 lira. If a family of five ate simit and drank tea three times a day, the monthly cost would reach 36,000 lira, according to the calculation cited in the report. That figure excludes rent, utility bills, transport and other needs.
For comparison, Sözcü gives the current minimum wage as 28,075 lira and the lowest pension as 23,552 lira. The tea-and-simit estimate exceeds both amounts. It is an illustration from the article and does not account for other food or a family’s essential expenses.