Minimum wage: Is there a fair answer?

Minimum wage: Is there a fair answer?

South Africa has a couple of world leading achievements:
1. A constitution second to none.
2. Income inequality that requires serious action, this includes the unbalanced economy still leaning towards the white portion of the population.
3. A huge unemployment problem intensified by poor employability due to lack of schooling and training
4. A very large prison community.
5. A massive tax burden in the form of grants to the poor, old age, war veterans, tribal leaders, etc.
6. A very small tax base.
To summarise the problem in one sentence is difficult, but consider this: An inmate receive approximately 10 times the financial benefit from Tax payers money compared to an old age pensioner, who it most cases contributed over 50 years of hard work to the economy. This contribution cannot be described in a million words, so I leave it at that. For some reason the constitution contributed to this scenario, because a prisoner’s rights are protected by the constitution. They can even vote in elections.
Let us now get to the point:
How do you employ a poorly educated person between 18 and 35 who has never worked (or a very little) for a salary higher than that of an old age pensioner?
And how do you pay a properly trained worker contributing to the economy, less that what an inmate receives in the form of food and accommodation?
Somehow it is here where we dropped the ball. We need to look at the big picture.
1. Unemployment needs to be addressed.
2. We need better educated people that could be trained to be productive.
3. We need to understand that there are a lot of unfair practices that require rectification.
4. We need to decide what is best for the country to enable everyone to obtain a better life.
5. Everybody needs to make compromises in order to achieve the bigger picture.
6. Higher and higher entry level wages through minimum wage legislation is not going to contribute in rectifying the since of the past.
Let us change our attitude and get rid of all the fear preventing us from working together to a common goal: Better life for all.

Yvette Retief

Environmental Social Sustainable Development

4 年

Poverty is the big crisis and government think land distribution will fix it for now. Accordig to the Sustainable development goals, the biggest problem is water. There are a huge amount of small holding farmers that can't farm and provide for the household because the pipes that feed water to the communities are out of order for years and the munisipality just say they have no money. Starting an NGO with the focus on sustainable development goals, I am kicking of with providing water to those farmers as they sell at the local markets and that is how they provide for the household, a proper meal, money for school. If water is available on a sustainable basis their lives can prosper.

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