Revenu minimum Le revenu minimum à 1200 livres égyptiennes : une "défaite" pour 10 millions de travailleurs égyptiens. *********** There have been mixed reactions to this week’s announcement of a new public sector minimum total income of EGP1,200 per month to come into effect in January of 2014. Many are unsatisfied – unsatisfied with the EGP1,200 figure, the target of total income and not wage, or the meeting of the social justice objective. Some see it as a positive step while others see it as more disappointing than that. I see it as something altogether different. I see it as a defeat for the ten million or so Egyptian workers whose interests have largely been ignored in most of this debate, and whose livelihoods will not be improved by either a public or private sector “minimum law”, be it wage or total income. In my view, this step was taken to succumb to the political pressures of those representing the more privileged rather than sound economic judgement. And what’s worse, I believe this cabinet would have preferred to have made a different decision, one in the better interest of the majority, but could not given the current political climate. The state minimum wage affects few workers Egypt has about 24 million workers. Just fewer than six million, about one-quarter of all employees, are state employees. So any talk of the state’s minimum earners needs to bring to light that a higher state pay will help a minority of Egyptian workers, a fraction of state employees or only a share of the one-quarter. It brings no immediate positive benefit to the 75% of Egyptian non-state workers, 18 million people, plus the state’s non-minimum earners and certainly not the unemployed. In short, this is a policy move to help the few. There are many good arguments for helping the few, particularly if they are the worst off or if helping the few will not harm others. At the very least, the benefits of helping the few by increasing state salaries should be outweighed the harm that it will do to others. It is hard to fully judge how much and how many of the six million the policy change will help given the extent of data released to the public. But it seems the debate should at least consider three things: if the policy change will in fact help in the right way, whether it is helping the worst off, and whether it will harm others.
Posted on: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 05:37:43 +0000
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