The debate about the future of the minimum wage gained strength after the prime minister admitted the possibility of Portugal reaching 1,600 euros. But without a defined timetable, the central question becomes inevitable: with the rate of increase that exists today, how long would it really take the country to reach this value? According to Economy and Finance, a website specializing in economics and current affairs, projections show that the road would be long, especially if growth continues to advance in fixed increments.
The topic once again puts the focus on the trajectory of the national minimum wage and the weight of legislative decisions that are yet to be defined. According to the same publication, the evolution between 2024 and 2025, which increased the SMN from 820 to 870 euros, serves as a basis for analyzing scenarios and understanding how far away the announced goal is.
Hypothesis 1: Fixed increases of 50 euros per year
The first simulation starts from a simple premise: maintain exactly the same increase recorded this year, that is, 50 euros more per year. If that were the case, explains Economy and Finance, it would take around 15 years to reach 1,600 euros. The target would only be reached in 2040, when the minimum wage would reach 1,620 euros.
The projection highlights the slowness of the process if there is no significant acceleration. In practice, the current generation of workers would only see this value consolidated much later than the political discourse suggests.
Hypothesis 2: proportional increases (6.1%) like the one in 2025
The second scenario considers the percentage growth rate of last year: 6.1% more. Maintaining this rate, it would be possible to reach 1,600 euros within 11 years. According to the same source, this would mean that, in 2035, the SMN would already reach 1,572 euros, surpassing the symbolic barrier the following year, with a projected minimum wage of 1,668 euros.
Here, the pace is noticeably faster, but still far from the short-term ambition mentioned by the Government.
How much would it have to rise per year to reach 1,600 euros by 2029?
The current legislature ends in 2029. If the objective were to really reach 1,600 euros by then, increases much higher than those currently registered in the government program would be necessary. According to , there will still be 730 euros left to reach the target, which would represent an accumulated increase of 84%.
Spreading this effort over four years, the minimum wage would have to follow the following trajectory:
- 2026 – 1.052,50 euros
- 2027 – 1.235 euros
- 2028 – 1.417,50 euros
- 2029 – 1.600 euros
The discrepancy becomes evident when compared with the official proposal: the Government aims for 920 euros in 2026 and a SMN of 1,100 euros in 2029. According to the same publication, this would leave just three years to recover the difference to 1,600 euros, a practically impossible leap without very aggressive increases.
A gap between political ambition and numerical reality
The analysis shows that the distance between the announced objectives and the mathematical projections remains wide. Even in more optimistic growth scenarios, such as percentage increases, the target of 1,600 euros would only be realistic in the next decade. With fixed increments, the target slips towards the middle of the century.
The future will therefore depend on a combination of factors: productivity, labor negotiations, acceleration of economic growth and budgetary decisions. Until then, the debate on the minimum wage promises to remain at the center of public discussion, both due to the numbers and the social impact.
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