Galery

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The middle class, which for decades was the backbone of Greek economy and society, has suffered the most from the economic crisis. A study of the Swiss bank Credit Suisse shows the negative consequences for the Greek middle class, which until 2007 was considered one of the wealthiest in the world.

According to the data, from 2008 to the present day, the income of 1.2 million Greeks has decreased and the value of their property has dropped by 500 billion euro.

Accounting for the fact that today's value of the property of the middle class in Greece amounts to $678 billion compared to almost $1.2 trillion in 2007, the total value of the decrease is over 43%.

The main reasons for this decline are the depreciation of property, the stock market collapse, the capitalization of shares and the significant losses suffered by the euro in recent years.

In 2008, the middle class in Greece numbered 5.8 million people. Today they are 4.6 million, i.e. 1.2 million less. By comparison, in the year 2000, when Greece was in an intermediate stage before its accession to the euro zone, the middle class again consisted of 4.7 million people.

The study shows that the wealth of Greeks has significantly decreased. In the period 2007-2008, it decreased by $216 billion and from 2008 to mid-2015 by another $272 billion.

This year, the average wealth of each Greek decreased to $81,300 whereas before the start of the collapse in 2007 it amounted to $136,800.

Indicative of the reasons are the shocks suffered by the Athens Stock Exchange. In late 2007, its capitalization amounted to 196.39 billion euro whereas at the end of yesterday's session it was 39.6 billion euro, which means that 157 billion euro have been lost in the crisis years.

At the same time, from 2008 to the present day, property prices in many regions have fallen by about 60-65%, as indicated by the most recent data of the Hellenic Association of Realtors.