KUALA LUMPUR – The government, in the long run, needs to improve the Progressive Wage Model (PWM) and use a broad approach to resolve the minimum wage issue, said the Malay Economic Action Council.
Its chairman Norsyahrin Hamidon said the government should set clear goals to ensure that the majority of workers will eventually earn a salary that exceeds the living wage.
“For example, the government, through the mid-term review of the 12th Malaysia Plan, set the goal that by 2025 only 40% of households are below the living wage threshold, and by 2030 only 10%,” he added.
“We think higher wages can be the most important factor in shaping our industry and trade rather than just being labour intensive, low tech with a dependence on foreign workers,” he said in a statement yesterday.
He thinks PWM has good features that can be absorbed into the minimum wage policy, even though it is not a silver bullet to leave behind the existing minimum wage system.
In the meantime, based on a study by Bank Negara and the Employees Provident Fund (EPF), a reasonable living wage is estimated at around RM2,600 per month for single adults in the Klang Valley, but EPF’s Belanjawanku suggests around RM2,300 per month this year.
He also said Belanjawanku EPF suggests that the average living wage for a married couple with two children is about RM6,000, but through median household data from the Statistics Department’s chief statistician, about 51% of households earn below RM6,000. – Bernama, July 22, 2023
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