Kristen Gyles | First, invest in the people

I am trying to have a balanced view of the minimum wage increase, and I am caught between applauding the fact that there has finally been an increase and rolling my eyes at the actual value of the increase. It is great that the minimum wage has been increased effective April 1, but realistically speaking, $9,000 per week or $36,000 per month can’t feed two growing high-schoolers who are doing online classes, let alone feed them while also paying rent and utilities.

I want to offer the usual platitudes about the Government ‘moving in the right direction’, but if we’re honest, there was no other direction in which to move. With the cost of living seeming to ever move in only one direction, an increase in the minimum wage was clearly inevitable, especially after four years of stagnation. The question is, what is the increase?

To balance the conversation, I get it. Raising the minimum wage comes at a cost to the Government and has drastic implications for micro, small and medium enterprises. But, to declare my bias, I am more in favour of a society in which everyone can survive, at the very minimum, even at the cost of government capital expenditure and expansionary projects.

REVISIT ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

First, I am going to go out on a limb and say we need to revisit the way we look at economic development. As a country, we’ve laboured for the past 60 years and continue to labour towards economic stability and independence. We have been building on what little we started with post-colonialism. We’ve done well. However, for right now, we need to focus on investing more in our people and in the type of infrastructure that increases their capacity to earn. I want rapid-pace economic growth too, but not at the expense of people finding food.

For example, of what use is a big, majestic multimillion-dollar sign welcoming everyone to the Second City, if not very far beyond the sign cars are ambushed by little clusters of barefoot pickney begging money? Just a thought.

With the British Royals having announced their arrival to Jamaica in March, I am sure the house will get painted and the yard will get swept but for goodness sake, let’s try to put food on the table before the people inside start fainting of hunger.

I think the primary emphasis where economic development is concerned should be on elevating people’s lives to a minimum standard that facilitates them actually living like people. Quite a few of the many capital expenditure projects can wait until the country is better fed and sheltered. Jamaica can’t develop at a faster rate than its own people. The greatest investment should be in the country’s human capital. That is, increasing the paltry salaries for most essential workers to decent levels, investing in healthcare and security and subsidising education. I think I can safely say that everything else is secondary.

The majority of the working class might make more than the minimum wage but some of the most vulnerable people do not. That is, people who are less educated, don’t have exotic skills and don’t have connections to hook them up with opportunities they couldn’t otherwise get. We have a duty not to leave these people behind.

The discussion surrounding the minimum wage increase also makes it hard to gloss over the recent lengthy salary increase negotiations that have now ended. Of course, increasing public sector salaries by four per cent is costly. But so are many of the far-reaching infrastructure projects that are not necessarily geared towards increasing the earning capacity and standard of living of the people. Again, what comes first? Put more of the money in the hands of the people so they can buy decent food and still pay rent within the same month. This only increases their productive capacity anyway.

There is certainly a need for a review of the very concept of ‘minimum wage’. Striving towards a liveable wage, as some groups have suggested, is much more appropriate. And a liveable wage will always be a function of the cost of living. It therefore stands to reason that having the minimum or liveable wage pegged to the consumer price index might not be such a bad idea.

CAN’T IGNORE

Of course, I can’t ignore the supposedly dreadful impact minimum wage increases have on MSMEs. If you can’t afford to pay your staff $9,000 a week, without increasing the cost of your services or products, maybe you ran ahead of yourself as a business owner. I am not sure that it makes sense to have an enterprise running that can’t afford to pay each worker a minimum of $9,000 a week for full-time work. Wheel and come again. It’s quite exploitative to throw bones at people simply because they are not in a position to demand better.

Kristen Gyles is a free-thinking public affairs opinionator. Email feedback to kristengyles@gmail.com.