Economy
By Kennedy Nnamani
PICODI.com, an international e-commerce company providing discount coupons for online stores, has released a report revealing that Nigeria’s minimum wage cannot afford the basket of basic food necessary to live in the country.
According to the report which was published on picodi.com, of the 67 countries compared, Nigeria ranked 60 with a 0% increase in its minimum wage between January 2022 and January 2023.
The study also revealed that the wage is not enough to ensure a minimum standard of living in the countries studied.
“Nigerian employees on minimum wage earn ₦30,000 net monthly (same as last year)
“This ranks Nigeria in 60th place of the ranking (0%)
“The basket of basic food necessary to live costs Nigerians ₦48,130, which is 160.4% of the minimum wage (last place in the ranking)
“This means that the minimum wage is not enough to cover even such a basic basket of products
“Compared to the previous year, this year the minimum wage grew slower than the prices of products,” the report said.
In comparison, based on the report, 7 out of 67 countries included in the ranking did not experience any increase in the minimum wage compared to January 2022. These countries included Israel, Hong Kong, Spain, Nigeria.
Meanwhile, Argentina recorded the highest year-to-year minimum wage increase (104.5%) and Turkey had (100%).
Other countries, which also stood out with a high minimum wage increase are Moldova with 32.5%, Latvia with 27.1% and Malaysia with 25.8%.
According to the report, the price of a basic food basket in Nigeria at the beginning of 2023 costs ₦48,130, which is 17.45% higher than the previous year.
The report noted that the analysts created a contractual shopping basket and juxtaposed the price of food with the minimum wage.
“The basket consists of 8 groups of products: bread, milk, eggs, rice, cheese, meat, fruits and vegetables.
“The list is very limited, but those products in the given amounts are enough to meet the minimum nutrient requirement for an average adult.
The basket contained Milk (10 litres) at ₦60.90, Bread (10 loaves, 500 g each) going for ₦31.70, Rice (1.5 kg) at ₦12.08, Eggs (20 pcs) at ₦15.60, Cheese (1 kg) at ₦26.13, Poultry and beef (6 kg) at ₦226.26, Fruits (6 kg) going for ₦39.24 and Vegetables (8 kg) at ₦39.56 all of which amounts to ₦48,130
There has been a significant increase in the price of the basic food basket in respect to other previous years in the country.
While January 2023 has ₦48,130, January 2022 closely follows at ₦40,980, in January 2021, it stood at ₦35,360 while January 2020 and 2019 stood at ₦32,420 and ₦31,536, respectively.
Meanwhile countries with low basic food cost compared to the minimum wages include U.K with 6.5%, Ireland with 7.4%, New Zealand with 8.3% while Germany and Netherlands stood at 8.9%.
Nigeria ranked the highest in increase with 160.4%, immediately followed by Uzbekistan with 97.3% and Armenia with 74.6%.
KN
Tags: Kennedy Nnamani picodi.com
