On 18 June, Parliament voted in the second reading on a law that changes how the minimum wage in the Republic of Moldova is judged. The novelty sounds technical, but it has a concrete meaning — from now on, the “adequacy” of the minimum wage will be measured against a reference value, 50% of the average monthly economy salary. In other words, the state sets itself a ruler — a decent minimum wage should be at least half of what an employee earns on average.
This ruler comes from the European Directive on adequate minimum wages, which the law transposes into our legislation, and was introduced through an amendment by deputy Marcel Spatari. The project’s stated aim is to ensure „fair minimum wages that reflect the cost of living” and „reduce in-work poverty”.
How far off today’s minimum is
Put in figures, the ruler shows just how low the current minimum wage actually is. For 2026, the Government set a minimum economy wage of 6,300 lei (up from 5,500 lei in 2025) and a forecast average salary of 17,400 lei. Half of the forecast average means 8,700 lei — that is, the „decency” benchmark sits almost 40% above the minimum wage paid now. Even compared with the average salary actually earned in the economy, the minimum stays below the half-way threshold.
Note, however, an important nuance — the law introduces an assessment benchmark, not an automatic mechanism. The minimum wage does not rise on its own to 8,700 lei. What it will be remains an annual political decision of the Government, together with employers’ associations and trade unions — the ruler only shows where you stand, it does not move the figure by itself.
What the map looks like in Ungheni
Here the national benchmark meets a far more modest local reality. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the average gross monthly wage in Ungheni district was 11,781 lei in the third quarter of 2025 — about 3,700 lei below the national average (over 15,000 lei) and below the Centru region average. In practice, the Ungheni wage earner makes on average about three quarters of what the national average earns.
That means a „decency” threshold calculated on the national average sits very high relative to what is actually earned here. And not everyone even has an official salary — the district has around 16,300 wage earners, but a good part of the work, especially in villages and agriculture, stays informal — „undeclared” — where the minimum wage is hard to enforce. And poverty is no abstraction — in the Centru region, of which the district is part, nearly four in ten people lived below the poverty line in 2025, above the national average.
Across the Prut, the minimum equals the average here
The harshest benchmark is offered by the border again. In Romania, the gross minimum wage for 2026 rises to 4,325 Romanian lei (RON) from 1 July. After conversion, at the current exchange rate, it is more than twice as high as Moldova’s minimum wage and approaches the average salary here. For a border town like Ungheni, where many have relatives working across the river, this gap is not a statistic but the concrete reason people leave.
On the other side, employers — especially small firms and farms with thin margins — view any increase with caution, fearing it would push work even further into the grey zone. That is precisely why what matters now is not so much the ruler on paper as the annual decision that will say whether the minimum wage really approaches half the average — or stays a fine benchmark in the Monitorul Oficial.