{"version":"1.9","identifier":"8abfdb48-2171-4654-8e27-a67f6bef6867","language":"en-US","title":"Turkey's labor minister promises January pension package, denies fund losses as committee passes budget","layout":{"columns":7,"width":1024,"margin":32,"gutter":20},"componentLayouts":{"text":{"columnStart":0,"columnSpan":7,"maximumContentWidth":720,"margin":{"top":12,"bottom":12}},"photo":{"columnStart":0,"columnSpan":7,"margin":{"top":20,"bottom":20}}},"componentTextStyles":{"default":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue","fontSize":18,"lineHeight":29,"textColor":"#171717"},"headline":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue-Bold","fontSize":36,"lineHeight":42,"conditional":[{"conditions":{"maxViewportWidth":480},"fontSize":28,"lineHeight":34}]},"intro":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue","fontSize":20,"lineHeight":28,"textColor":"#555555"},"caption":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue","fontSize":13,"lineHeight":19,"textColor":"#666666"},"byline":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue","fontSize":13,"lineHeight":20,"textColor":"#666666"},"body":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue","fontSize":18,"lineHeight":29,"paragraphSpacingAfter":14,"linkStyle":{"textColor":"#00704a"}}},"metadata":{"canonicalURL":"https://567politics.com/news/turkey-labor-budget-isikhan-pension-january-2027-minimum-wage-unemployment-fund-november-2026","datePublished":"2026-11-03T23:10:37.120779Z","dateModified":"2026-11-03T23:12:00.376334Z","authors":["Patrick Karsh"],"excerpt":"Vedat Işıkhan gave no figure for the 2027 pension rise. İŞKUR said 2.9 billion lira of the jobless fund sits at Takasbank; all opposition amendments failed.","thumbnailURL":"https://pub-fac99da959e344fe99d810d309cef7df.r2.dev/photos/article/8abfdb48-2171-4654-8e27-a67f6bef6867/914d521c0d41c896e140948a7f9f3a77.jpg","keywords":["tr"],"generatorName":"Frog News","generatorVersion":"1.0"},"components":[{"role":"title","text":"Turkey's labor minister promises January pension package, denies fund losses as committee passes budget","textStyle":"headline","layout":"text"},{"role":"intro","text":"Vedat Işıkhan gave no figure for the 2027 pension rise. İŞKUR said 2.9 billion lira of the jobless fund sits at Takasbank; all opposition amendments failed.","textStyle":"intro","layout":"text"},{"role":"byline","text":"By Patrick Karsh · Published November 3, 2026","textStyle":"byline","layout":"text"},{"role":"photo","URL":"https://pub-fac99da959e344fe99d810d309cef7df.r2.dev/photos/article/8abfdb48-2171-4654-8e27-a67f6bef6867/914d521c0d41c896e140948a7f9f3a77.jpg","caption":"Labor and Social Security Minister Vedat Işıkhan, pictured in 2023. · Ramazan Furkan Türkan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons","accessibilityCaption":"Labor and Social Security Minister Vedat Işıkhan, pictured in 2023.","layout":"photo"},{"role":"caption","text":"Labor and Social Security Minister Vedat Işıkhan, pictured in 2023. · Ramazan Furkan Türkan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons","textStyle":"caption","layout":"text"},{"role":"body","format":"markdown","text":"Turkey's labor minister told parliament on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, that the government is preparing an extra increase for pensioners to take effect in January 2027. He also denied that any money in the state's unemployment insurance fund was caught in the investment fund scandal. The statements came as the Plan and Budget Committee of the Grand National Assembly approved the 2027 budget of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security after a session of about ten hours.\n\nMinister Vedat Işıkhan gave no figure for the pension package and no date beyond January. He said it was being worked out under Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz with Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek. Opposition lawmakers used the session to press for larger increases to the lowest pension and the minimum wage. They also asked whether the unemployment fund had any exposure to the troubled markets. Every opposition amendment put to a vote was rejected.\n\nThis account draws mainly on the committee's [unreviewed official transcript](https://tbmm.gov.tr/Tutanaklar/TutanakGoster/5483), which the parliament published the same day and marks as not yet checked by its record service. Quotations are 567politics translations from Turkish.\n\n## A pension package for January, without a number\n\nIşıkhan opened his presentation at about 11 a.m. with the government's record on pensions. The lowest pension was 16,881 lira a month in the second half of 2025, he said. It rose to 20,000 lira in January 2026 and to 23,552 lira in July. He said the government had paid 483.4 billion lira in holiday bonuses to pensioners since 2018. \"Of course we know that these are not enough,\" he added.\n\nHe then described the new work. \"We are carrying out a study, targeted to take effect from January 2027, that includes the existing legal increases as well as additional improvements,\" he said. He said the approach would take account of \"income differences among our pensioners\" and would be based on \"justice and fairness,\" on the president's instructions. He said the government would share the result with the public when it was finished and submit it to parliament.\n\nUnder current law, pensions in Turkey rise twice a year in line with inflation. The minister's wording suggests the January step would combine that automatic increase with something extra. He did not say who would qualify, how much it would cost or how it would be paid for. The lowest pension is a floor that the Treasury tops up for people whose earned pension falls below it. A rise in that floor therefore reaches a different group from a general increase for all pensioners.\n\n**Turkey's lowest monthly pension**\n\nTurkish lira per month, as stated by the labor minister","textStyle":"body","layout":"text"},{"role":"htmltable","html":"
PeriodLowest pension
H2 202516,881
Jan 202620,000
Jul 202623,552
","layout":"text"},{"role":"body","format":"markdown","text":"Source: [TBMM Plan and Budget Committee transcript, Nov. 3, 2026](https://tbmm.gov.tr/Tutanaklar/TutanakGoster/5483)\n\nThe chart shows a rise of about 40% in one year in nominal terms. Over a similar period, consumer prices rose by roughly 30%, according to the statistics office's figures for October covered in [our report on the latest inflation data](https://567politics.com/news/turkey-october-inflation-29-77-tuik-enag-simsek-november-2026). The two numbers are not a precise comparison of purchasing power, because the pension steps came on fixed dates while prices rose month by month.\n\n## How the opposition framed the same numbers\n\nOpposition speakers answered the minister with poverty measures. Gamze Taşcıer spoke for YENİ Parti, the party formed this summer by lawmakers who left the Republican People's Party (CHP). She said the net minimum wage of 28,075 lira compared with a hunger line of 37,801 lira for a family of four. Hunger lines of this kind are published monthly by the labor confederation Türk-İş; other speakers cited its October figure of about 38,000 lira. \"There is a gap of more than 9,700 lira before the salary even reaches the account,\" she said, according to the transcript and an [Anka news agency report](https://ankahaber.net/haber/plan-ve-butce-komisyonu-yeni-partili-tascier-den-butce-elestirisi-emekliye-100-lira-faize-138-lira-c9ebb8cc).\n\nTaşcıer compared two lines of the central government's 2027 budget. She said 2.887 trillion lira was set aside for social security and 3.975 trillion lira for interest payments. \"So 100 lira for the pensioner, 138 lira for interest,\" she said. She said social security's share of every 100 lira of spending would rise from 9.87 lira this year to 10.59 lira in 2027, an increase of 72 kuruş.\n\nShe also raised press reports that the government was weighing different increases for pensioners by age. \"Instead of calculating the pensioner's age, calculate their rights,\" she told the minister. She asked how such a plan would treat people who had paid high premiums for many years, or who had retired early on disability grounds.\n\nSeveral speakers cited the same structural point. Yüksel Selçuk Türkoğlu of the İYİ Party said the lowest pension had once been 30% above the minimum wage, according to a [Haberler.com account of the session](https://www.haberler.com/politika/calisma-bakanligi-2027-butcesi-komisyonda-emekli-20391911-haberi/). He said minimum-wage earners had been 12% of all employees and were now more than half. 567politics could not find an official series that confirms the share of workers paid the minimum wage, and the statistics office does not publish one monthly.\n\nMustafa Kalaycı of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the governing party's ally, also asked for changes. Kalaycı, a deputy chair of the MHP, said more than 17 million people live on a pension and 5.1 million receive the lowest one, according to the transcript and an [Ekonomim report](https://www.ekonomim.com/sehirler/mhp-konya-milletvekili-kalaycidan-asgari-ucret-ve-emekli-maasi-icin-yeni-duzenleme-cagrisi-haberi-928924). He said the differences between pensions should be removed with a gradual adjustment, known in Turkish as *intibak*, based on the number of premium days and the premiums paid. He said the net minimum wage should be raised above the hunger line. He also asked for a lower premium-day threshold of 7,200 days for the self-employed, extra pay for top-grade civil servants and premium support so homemakers can earn a pension.\n\nKalaycı told the committee that the president had announced \"the good news\" that a regulation improving pensions would be made by the end of the year. The minister did not use those words, and no draft law had been sent to parliament by the end of the session.\n\nResul Kurt, a lawmaker from the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), defended the government's social security record. He said the number of active insured people had risen by 115% to about 26 million. \"We know and value the expectations of our pensioners,\" he said, adding that he expected funds to be set aside in 2027 for an improvement.\n\n## The minimum wage commission meets in December\n\nIşıkhan said the commission that sets the minimum wage, made up of government, worker and employer representatives, would meet in December to decide the 2027 rate. He said the minimum wage had risen 207% in real terms since 2002. He did not say which price index or base month that figure used, and several opposition lawmakers challenged it during the session.\n\nHe said the government raised its monthly support to employers for each minimum-wage worker to 1,270 lira in 2026, and that the support totaled 48.4 billion lira for about 1.5 million workplaces.\n\nThe opposition offered competing formulas for the new rate:","textStyle":"body","layout":"text"},{"role":"htmltable","html":"
ProposalWho made itBasis
At least 65,000 liraDEM PartyHalf the poverty line
Above the hunger lineMHP (Kalaycı)The hunger line
"At least 45,000" liraCevdet Akay (Karabük)His estimate for January
Tie it to GDP growthErhan Usta (İYİ)Last four quarters
","layout":"text"},{"role":"body","format":"markdown","text":"*Sources: TBMM transcript; DEM Party campaign leaflet; Ekonomim.*\n\nSümeyye Boz of the pro-Kurdish DEM Party said this year's 20% increase had come after inflation of 30.89% the year before. She said her party wants a minimum wage of at least 65,000 lira, which it describes as half the poverty line, under its \"budget for bread, peace and justice\" campaign. The party's [campaign leaflet](https://www.demparti.org.tr/Images/UserFiles/Documents/Editor/Materyaller/tek-kirim-a4-el-ilani.pdf) also calls for the lowest pension to be raised to the level of the minimum wage. Boz also argued against a regional minimum wage, an idea that employer groups have promoted. She said it would push down pay further in low-wage regions.\n\nErhan Usta of the İYİ Party proposed linking the minimum wage to an objective formula. He said the statistics office publishes third-quarter gross domestic product on Dec. 1 in both real and current prices. The annual rise in nominal output over the last four quarters, he said, should be the basis for the increase. His party also filed an amendment to add 120 billion lira to the employer support so the January increase could be larger.\n\n## A denial on the unemployment fund\n\nThe second issue of the day was the fund scandal. Prosecutors are investigating suspected manipulation in investment funds. Regulators have ordered funds liquidated, and the case has led to the arrest of the former head of the Istanbul stock exchange, as covered in [our report on the latest detentions](https://567politics.com/news/turkey-fund-probe-ergun-jailed-gurlek-433-suspects-opposition-group-speeches-november-2026). Erhan Usta of the İYİ Party told the committee that the general manager of Takasbank, the exchange's clearing bank, had been removed and was under house arrest.\n\nOpposition lawmakers asked whether the Unemployment Insurance Fund, which is financed by worker, employer and state premiums, had lost money. The fund lends part of its cash through Takasbank's money market.\n\nIşıkhan answered at the end of the session. He said the fund \"has nothing to do with the liquidated funds.\" He said it is invested under the public treasury management regulation, in government debt securities, public deposit and participation banks and Takasbank. It cannot legally or technically be used for speculation, he said. The authority to lend through Takasbank came from a regulation change on Jan. 19, 2022, he said. Each day the fund compares Takasbank rates with deposit rates and lends there only when the rate is better. Halk Yatırım, a state-owned brokerage, acts as the intermediary.\n\n\"It was asked openly: did the unemployment insurance fund get stuck in the funds?\" he said. \"I am answering openly: we do not have a single kuruş stuck in any fund.\"\n\nErhan Usta said the 2022 regulation change had opened a path for the fund into the market at the center of the case. He asked how much money was placed through Takasbank. Samet Güneş, director general of İŞKUR, the public employment agency, said the exposure was 0.4% of the total. \"What is there now is 2.9 billion,\" he said. He said 1.9 billion lira would mature in November and the rest by February, and that 600 million lira had come back in October. He said there had been no noticeable increase in the placements.\n\nEarlier in the exchange, Cevdet Akay, a lawmaker from Karabük, said he believed the minister's statement. He argued, however, that Takasbank had placed money in funds named in the case and lost it, which he called a public loss. \"There is no such thing,\" the minister replied. The transcript does not show any official document on the exposure, and 567politics could not verify the figures independently. The investigation itself has not alleged wrongdoing by the unemployment fund.\n\nAylin Yaman, a YENİ Parti lawmaker from Ankara, raised a separate point about the same fund. She said its assets of 883 billion lira were 11 times what it paid in unemployment benefits in 2025, while only 17% of the unemployed received benefits in June 2026. The minister put the fund's assets at more than 900 billion lira.\n\n## Women and the labor market\n\nGender gaps ran through the session. The minister said women's labor force participation had risen from 21.3% in 2005 to 35.2% in September 2026, and the female employment rate from 19.4% to 31.2%. He said women's unemployment was 11.3%. Those September figures match the statistics office's [labor force release for September](https://ankahaber.net/haber/tuik-eylul-ayinda-mevsim-etkisinden-arindirilmis-issizlik-orani-yuzde-8-4-oldu-581e9a21), as reported by Anka. The same release put the overall seasonally adjusted unemployment rate at 8.4%, up 0.5 points from August, and youth unemployment for women aged 15 to 24 at 23.3%.\n\nIşıkhan described a program called İş Pozitif, under which he said more than 2.7 million women had entered registered jobs since 2024. A positive-discrimination project pays employers up to 32,500 lira a month for three months for women they hire, he said, and 10,000 lira a month for six months in childcare support for mothers of children under 5.5. He said 13,733 women had benefited by September.\n\nOpposition speakers pointed to broader measures. Kalaycı said the labor slack rate, which counts the unemployed, the underemployed and people available but not looking, was 31.2% in September, and 40.4% for women. Taşcıer said 2.5 million people had given up looking for work and that 57% of them were women. She said the number of women who had lost hope of finding a job had risen from 810,000 in 2021 to nearly 1.5 million.\n\nHalide Türkoğlu of the DEM Party opened her remarks by naming seven workers who died in a fire at a cosmetics workshop in Dilovası, an industrial district near Istanbul, on Nov. 8, 2025. She said the ministry had not created a single mechanism where women could report harassment and rights violations in the homes and workplaces where they work.\n\n## The budget and what was rejected\n\nThe minister put the ministry's total 2027 budget proposal at about 2.396 trillion lira. Almost all of it is transfers: 2.266 trillion lira would go to the Social Security Institution and 121.9 billion lira to İŞKUR. Türkoğlu of the İYİ Party said the budget had risen from about 447 billion lira, a comparison that does not adjust for inflation.\n\nOpposition lawmakers filed a series of amendments to the social security line. One, signed by five lawmakers including Cavit Arı of Antalya, sought 2 trillion lira to raise the lowest pension and the two religious holiday bonuses to the level of the minimum wage. DEM lawmakers filed two. One sought 800 billion lira to lift the lowest pension to the minimum wage. The other sought 1.25 trillion lira for a law that would phase in retirement ages for people first insured after September 1999. Akay and a colleague proposed 1 trillion lira. The committee rejected all of them by show of hands. The transcript does not record vote counts.\n\nThe committee approved the ministry's 2027 budget and its 2025 final accounts. The full budget goes to the floor of parliament after the committee finishes.\n\nThe budget fight is running alongside other disputes in parliament this week. The DEM Party said the 2027 budget raises military spending by about 60%, a figure its co-chair has cited in [the party's budget campaign](https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/turkiye/dem-parti-den-ekmek-baris-ve-adalet-icin-butce-kampanyasi-tulay-hatimogullari-yoksulluk-aclik-bizim-kaderimiz-degil-2549867) and which 567politics has not checked. Lawmakers are also weighing [a defense pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan](https://567politics.com/news/turkey-parliament-mecca-defense-pact-vote-saudi-pakistan-party-positions-november-2026). The fund case continues to produce new arrests after prosecutors [sought the detention of the former stock exchange chief](https://567politics.com/news/turkey-fund-probe-borsa-istanbul-ergun-arrest-request-takasbank-spk-november-2026).\n\n## What remains unknown\n\n* **The size of the pension increase.** The minister gave no figure, no cost and no list of who would qualify. The MHP's call for an adjustment based on premiums and YENİ Parti's objection to age-based rates point to different designs.\n* **The minimum wage.** The commission meets in December. The government has not said what inflation figure it will use.\n* **The fund exposure.** İŞKUR's figure of 2.9 billion lira placed through Takasbank was given orally. No written breakdown by maturity was published with it.\n* **The transcript.** The record is marked unreviewed and may be corrected before final publication.","textStyle":"body","layout":"text"}]}