Give the minimum wage report its due
It's better than nothing. You hear that often when it comes to talk around the Sunday braai. Throw in a high unemployment rate and it's a no-brainer. You just can't pay people more. Right?
But read the report, A National Minimum Wage for South Africa. It was released late last year and is the subject of current discussion in Nedlac. In it are some hard facts: 4.6million people who work earn less than R2500 a month; 5.5million people earn less than R3,000 and 6.2million take home less than R3,500. Almost 12million people live below the food poverty line - how much it costs one person to meet the daily calorie requirement of 2,100 calories, which in South Africa is R445 a month. In many homes there is only one wage earner; in some, not one. If we are serious about tackling inequality and securing a better economic trajectory, something (or someone) has got to give. To quote the report: "The ILO [International Labour Organisation] has found that rising income inequality in SA between 2007 and 2012 occurred because income growth in the bottom decile households had stagnated in real terms, while the incomes in the top decile continued to increase." Discussions on a minimum...
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