Yet another chart has ranked Bulgaria as the European Union's worst-off member in terms of incomes. Bulgarians are not only paid the lowest wages in the bloc but local labor productivity is the lowest. About 30% of working Bulgarians live under the poverty line, a survey of the EU foundation exploring the quality of life has found.

In Bulgaria, the annual income of people at work comes to 6200 euro placing the country at the bottom of EU charts. This amount comprises workers' wages and social security contributions paid by employers. One in four households in this country lives on 60% or below of the country's average income. In EU this is true of one in six households.

Romania, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland are ahead of Bulgaria as per average annual incomes from work. In those countries annual incomes from work sit under the margin of 10,000 euro. In contrast, the chart is topped by Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium and Denmark where the average annual salary per capita comes to roughly 60,000 euro, or nine times the amount that Bulgarians are paid.

Bulgaria also fares worst in terms of labor productivity. Back in 2012, every worker produced about 12,000 euro of the Gross Domestic Product. In Norway, where labor productivity is the highest, the amount is 145,000 per a working individual. In Luxembourg it is 117,000 euro. In latest official figures, labor productivity increases by 1.7% on an annual basis. A working individual in Bulgaria generates an average of 6.7 euro per hour. However in the last quarter of 2013 every employed individual generated 8 euro from the GDP per an hour of work with labor costs growing across EU by an average of 2.4 % per annum. In Bulgaria the growth stands at 5% annually. Romania has seen the biggest annual increase at 16.5%, while Germany has seen the lowest, at 0.7%.

Against this bleak backdrop one can draw a conclusion that the level of prices and the cost of living in Bulgaria are way below Europe's average. Some experts point out that some goods and services are up to 60-70% cheaper than in the bloc's advanced countries. This pertains to a few staples, public transport rates, fuels, real estate and rents. All this comes as some sort of consolation for the low standard of living of the majority of Bulgarians who tend to be relatively poor though employed.

English Daniela Konstantinova