The R3,500 national minimum monthly wage that the committee of experts has recommended is below the "working poverty line" of R4,317 — but well above the minimum wages in all the sectoral determinations that the minister of labour has in place. These protect about 5-million workers in sectors where there is no wage bargaining between trade unions and employers. That captures just how high, yet how low, the R3,500 is relative to what millions of working South Africans actually get paid in practice. About 47% of the workforce earn less than R3,500 and the lowest sectoral determination wages range from R1,813 in domestic work to R2,761 in the hospitality industry and R2,844 for contract cleaners. It also captures some of the difficulties of launching a national minimum wage in an economy that has high levels of inequality and poverty — but also much unemployment. Those difficulties include the question of how the proposed national minimum wage will interact with the many existing colle...
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