Friday, December 14, 2012

Minimum Wage in Haiti

After writing my last blog, Health Care is a Basic Right, I decided to learn about minimum wage in Haiti and to compare the data to other countries.

Wikipedia has a page with "official" information on recent minimum wage data. Likely the data is OK, but the numbers do not take into consideration local cost of living, so the numbers are "relative" and meant only to stimulate thought and discussion. The numbers in the graph below are the yearly income in US dollars based on the minimum wage.



I included Nicaragua, where I worked four times in the last few years. My experience is that the cost of living in Nicaragua is about the same as Haiti and that a lot more Nicaraguans have jobs. There is therefore a lot more money in Nicaragua. As poor as Nicaraguans are, the people are definitely rich by Haiti standards.


As low as the minimum wage is in Haiti, when the amount is adjusted to the rate of inflation, the minimum wage has likely fallen over the lasts 30 years!

In 1980 the minimum wage was 13.2 gourdes a day. This increased to 15 gourdes in 1984, 36 gourdes in 1995, and to 70 gourdes in 2003. President Preval passed legislation in 2009 to increase the minimum wage in steps such that the amount would be 200 gourdes in October 2012. Textile owners complained about this increase and apparently Preval negotiated a two-tiered minimum wage with 125 gourdes ($3 US) for the textile workers (mostly women) and 200 gourdes ($4.75 US) for other labor sectors.

Any increase is great but whether the increase can be enforced is another matter. Would the government shut down the textile industry (or any industry) when only 20% of the population has a job at all and there are no other jobs available? Would the workers go on strike and lose the minimal subsistence income they have?

What the Haitian people need are jobs. A good approach for those who want to help would be to sponsor a business in Haiti.  



No comments:

Post a Comment