30% MINIMUM WAGE HIKE

Amid the sharp increase in the cost of living and the depreciation of the Jamaican dollar, business and sector leaders have advocated for a 30 per cent rise in the minimum wage, offering a safety net for low-income workers whose personal budgets have been decimated by inflation.

The proposal comes in the wake of 9.7 per cent January inflation that has caused the prices of food, fuel, and other commodities to soar, attributed largely to global supply-chain woes and the looming prospect of a Russian invasion of Ukraine that has sent oil markets skidding.

Lieutenant Commander George Overton, president of the Jamaica Society for Industrial Security (JSIS), has floated the idea of at least a 30 per cent increase in the minimum wage, which has not been adjusted since 2018.

With an increase of that ratio, the standard minimum wage would be increased to $9,100 weekly and $12,610 for security guards.

Currently, the minimum wage stands at $7,000 weekly, with security guards receiving $9,700.

“We have to take into consideration what has taken place with inflation since then and project it for another two years at least. It needs to be somewhere in that region,” said Overton.

“A minimum wage increase is long overdue,” he added.

John Mahfood, president of the Jamaica Manufacturers and Exporters Association (JMEA), has asserted that the current minimum wage is not a liveable salary. The JMEA president is of the view that the ideal weekly remuneration should be between $9,000 and $10,000 a week.

“What is probably more important is that instead of waiting so long between increases, that they should be more regular so that there is not a situation where the minimum wage falls so far behind, and I think it should be probably more important that every year or two, they top it up with the inflation rate,” Mahfood told The Gleaner.

In a 2021 report, the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CAPRI) found that the minimum wage was too low to ensure that families remained above the poverty rate.

The report found that a sole earner in a family of four should earn approximately $34,200 monthly or $8,550 weekly to be in line with the poverty rate. This is contrasted with the $28,000 an individual would receive monthly based on the existing baseline.

But that analysis would not factor the inflationary pressure on family budgets, which has seen the household basket hit by double-digit price hikes on basics like chicken meat and petrol. Analysis of pump prices published by The Gleaner a week ago showed that fuel costs have jumped by an average of almost 11 per cent, with diesel jumping more than 13 per cent.

National Minimum Wage Advisory Commission member St Patrice Ennis revealed that a recommendation for an increase in the minimum wage was resubmitted to the Government in January 2022.

While declining to provide the specific figure proposed, Ennis, in a Gleaner interview on Sunday, sought to assuage the public that the Government has never gone below the recommendation made by the commission.

Vincent Morrison, president of the Union of Clerical, Administrative and Supervisory Employees, has expressed disappointment with the lack of action from the Government.

“I think the Government should be blamed squarely for the sufferation that minimum wage earners are experiencing at this time. Seven thousand dollars cannot buy a large cylinder of cooking gas or grocery for one week,” Morrison said.

While describing Overton’s proposal as “enlightening”, Morrison, however, argues that the proposed 30 per cent rise is inadequate.

He is counter-proposing a hike ranging between $15,000 and $21,000 per week.

Morrison has also recommended that the minimum wage be increased annually and that it be pegged to shifts in the cost of living.

david.salmon@gleanerjm.com