Worker unrest shows cost-of-living crisis can no longer be ignored, Pg12

Key Highlights:

• Recent worker protests highlight the struggle to meet basic living costs due to inadequate wages, despite overtime work.
• Real wages have stagnated or declined across sectors since 2011-12, impacting agricultural, non-agricultural, and regular wage earners.
• Over 310 million workers registered on the E-shram portal report earning less than Rs 10,000 per month.
• High demand for work under VB-G RAM G indicates economic distress, with wages significantly lower than market rates.

Detailed Insights:

• Data from the Labour Bureau indicates near-stagnation in agricultural wages and decline in non-agricultural wages.
• Regular wages in urban areas declined by 1.2% per annum between 2011-12 and 2022-23, and in rural areas by 0.6% per annum.
• Periodic Labour Force Surveys (PLFS) suggest a marginal recovery in real regular earnings between 2022 and 2025, but still below 2011-12 levels.
• Earnings of self-employed individuals have also shown a real decline since 2017-18, according to PLFS data.
• The Annual Survey of Unorganised Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) 2025 reports average monthly remuneration below inflation-adjusted minimum wages.
• Low earnings contribute to low demand in the economy, impacting private investment and overall economic growth.
• Rising inflation, geopolitical uncertainty, and potential deficient monsoon may worsen the cost-of-living crisis.
• Long-term solutions require interventions to raise workers’ incomes and potentially regulate working conditions.

Key Concepts Involved:

• Minimum Wage: The lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their workers.
• Real Wage: Wage adjusted for inflation, reflecting the actual purchasing power of earnings.
• Inflation: The rate at which the general level of prices for goods and services is rising, and subsequently, purchasing power is falling.