South Africa’s minimum wage was recently increased to R27.6 for hour (or R4400 per fulltime worker per month). According to estimates available from the Living wage and income dataset, the 2022 minimum wage figure is about 15% lower than the living wage per worker of around R4900 fulltime worker per month. Compared to other emerging markets, the minimum wage-living wage gap is relatively low by these estimates. Countries with the largest implied minimum wage-living wage gap are Uganda, Ghana, India, Mexico and Bangladesh. Note that measuring living wages comes with several challenges related to the complex nature of income sufficiency and regional cost of living, so there is a large margin of uncertainty around such estimates.
Footnote
The South African minimum wage used in the comparison is slightly lower (R4017) than the new minimum wage applicable from 1 March 2024 (R4400).
