Minimum wage in my country is like giving a boy toldler a drop of breast milk both when he's hungry and when he's not. How do you think the baby feels with this? He yearns for more like he was been punished for the drop right?
Okay lets start this way.... Right before we got here, minimum wages in my country was 18,000 naira in the regime of Goodluck Jonathan and I think that's less than 15USD right now but back then let's just still say that people were still able to manage and live a better life because the economy was still in a better form. Even though we still complain that things were expensive but at least, an average citizen could still afford a pot of soup.
Gradually, it increased to 30,000 in the regime of the previous president Bubu (Muhammadu Buhari) and even though it was increased, life still became hard because citizens now purchases goods in doubled amounts these goods were previously purchased at the time minimum wages was 18,000.
Another president came in which is the current president BAT and he also increased minimum wages to 70,000 which is more than a hundred percent increment right? But just like my tribe would say:
Kaka ki ewe agbon de, lile lotun nle si
Which means that instead of things to be more comfortable for people because of this increment, the hardship only increased with no hesitation. All because the state of the economy is so bad.
I took my time to explain all these increment just so I can establish my point that, no matter how well they increase this minimum wages, as long as the economy is nothing to write home about then the country and her citizens is still in a deep mess. Poverty would still shine its teeth like a mirror under the sun and no one would be able to deeply say that the increment affected their lives positively.
Back in the days when I was Corp member in the year 2022 and Corp member's allawee was recently increased to 33,000, I could still make a pot of goat meat soup with 1,000 and I eat it for a week if I manage it well unlike now that Corp member's are collecting 70,000 but they won't dare talk about using 5,000 to make a goat meat soup that would last a week. That's basically the error I was trying to explain above
So it's not really about the increment in the minimum wages but about fixing the economy to make it a favourable one for all else the country will still remain the country with high poverty rate even if minimum wages is increased in four folds or six folds cos originally, these governments are not intentionally increasing the wages but because of the hardship caused by the economy.
In summary, there's no amount they want to increase minimum wages to that can make me say I am rich. Probably if they increase it to a million naira sha, I might be considering myself a rich person then and that's if the cost of buying a litre of fuel at 1million naira as well.
I'll be dropping my 🖊️ here on the Hive Learners community prompt
Thanks for reading through 🤗
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