The Perspective Machine ← the machine

Income in Greece

The median income in Greece is about $27 a day per person (2021 PPP dollars) — richer than 81% of everyone alive. Half of Greece lives on less than that.

The world's own median person — about $7.73 a day — would stand in the bottom 4% of Greece.

Place your own income in Greece →

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The curve

$1$10$100 median

Daily income per person, log scale, PPP dollars — the same curve the machine walks you across.

What it takes to stand where

Take-home income per person, in today's EUR, at each point on the curve of Greece (the machine's convention: household take-home divided by the people it supports).

Richer than…per year, per personper day (PPP $)
10% of Greece€3,149$12
25% of Greece€4,769$18
50% of Greece€7,008$27
75% of Greece€10,065$38
90% of Greece€13,872$53
99% of Greece€40,575$154

Rounded, never inflated: the machine floors "richer than" claims.

The four levels in Greece

How much of Greece and of the world lives on each of four income levels. The cuts are the World Bank's $3.00 (international poverty line) and $8.30 (upper-middle-income line), both 2021 PPP; the top cut, $33, is the machine's own, four times the $8.30 line. The objects are what an income on each level tends to buy across the world's surveys — not a description of any one country.

Levelper day (PPP $)What tends to come with it, worldwideGreeceWorld
Level 1under $3.00a fire to cook on, water carried home from the well, everywhere on foot1%13%
Level 2$3.00–$8.30a bicycle, a gas canister for the stove, a tap within walking distance3%39%
Level 3$8.30–$33a motorbike, a gas stove, a bank account62%32%
Level 4$33+a car, a fridge, hot water from the tap34%15%

About 62% of Greece lives on Level 3, between $8.30 and $33 a day per person; worldwide, about 32% of people do.

The line that moved

In Greece, 1.2% lived under the $3.00 line at the 1995 survey and under 1% at the 2023 one — it has barely moved.

50% 0 1990 today

Share of Greece under $3.00 a day (2021 prices) at each national survey, World Bank PIP via Our World in Data; the faint line is the world's.

Worldwide, the share under the World Bank's $3.00-a-day line fell from about 43% in 1990 to about 10% today (Our World in Data; the latest years are the Bank's nowcast). Where the lift came, it came the unglamorous way: wages, harvests, workshops.

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Where this comes from

The World Bank's Poverty and Inequality Platform percentile distribution for Greece (survey year 2023), in 2021 PPP dollars; incomes typed in today's money are deflated to 2021 prices with the national CPI and converted with the 2021 consumption-PPP factor. Snapshot fetched September 2026. Full methodology & honesty rules.

Neighbours on the curve

The countries whose median income sits nearest to Greece's — and a few far from it, for scale.

UruguayMalaysiaRomaniaBulgariaTurkeyRussiaSwitzerlandfor scaleIndiafor scale

All 145 countries