The living wage is a wage that allows the country’s lowest-paid workers to provide for their families while also leaving enough money to save for unanticipated emergencies.
Professor Ines Meyer of the University of Cape Town recently emphasised that according to the Living Wage South Africa Network (LWSAN), the monthly living wage amount for 2024 will be R15,000 net.
This number is calculated based on the self-reported quality of life of low-income survey participants from South Africa. In the public arena, this figure was met with conflicting reactions, according to the network.
“A number of people insisted that R15,000 could never cover their monthly obligations,” said Meyer.
“It is hard to make ends meet on R15,000, yet most who work in South Africa earn even less. The legally prescribed national minimum wage comes to only one third of the living wage. If it is difficult to live on R15,000 per month, how shall those whose income is even lower get by?” Meyer asked.
She added that the Living Wage South Africa Network invites the public and companies to examine the situation of these workers who struggle to afford the bare necessities that the rest take for granted.
“This figure affords the opportunity to live a ‘decent’ life in the sense that it gives people a choice over areas of life that matter to them,” Meyer said.
Employers are encouraged to pay the living wage voluntarily, as an act of human decency. According to the World Inequality Database, South Africa’s median pay is R5,417, accounting for the top 36% of earnings.
“We complain about living month-to-month, but many low-earning families survive from morning-to-morning.”
According to Meyer, businesses continue to judge a worker’s worth based on the value of their labour to the corporation, rather than their inherent value as living beings.
“This thinking developed almost a century ago when the world looked very different to today. We sincerely need to question this outdated thinking and create a cultural threshold where compassion for our fellow human aligns with corporate ambition,” said Meyer.
IOL