Wages of workers in the National Capital Region (NCR) continue to fall even as their growing labor productivity drives economic growth under the Duterte government. The mandated minimum wage is not even keeping up with the rising cost of living for ordinary Filipinos. Research group IBON said that keeping wages low distributes wealth unevenly and worsens inequality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nPhilippine economy is slowing but real gross domestic product (GDP)\nstill grew 6.7% in 2017 and 6.2% in 2018. The regional GDP of NCR\ngrew 6.2% and 4.8% in that same period, registering a total increase\nof 11.3% between 2016 and 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In\nNCR, this economic growth was most of all driven by rising labor\nproductivity. Labor productivity in NCR, measured by regional GDP\ndivided by total employed, increased from Php568,092 per worker in\n2016 to Php640,125 in 2018 or a total increase of 12.7% between 2016\nand 2018. These are IBON estimates using the latest available data\nfrom the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet\ndespite rising labor productivity, the NCR real minimum wage is\nactually falling under the Duterte administration. Measured at\nconstant 2012 prices, this fell from Php467 in July 2016 to just\nPhp457 in March 2019. The Php46 worth of wage hikes since 2016 have\nbeen more than off-set by inflation and the continually rising costs\nof goods and services especially last year. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON\nalso pointed out that the wage gap, or the difference between the\nminimum wage and the family living wage (FLW), is growing wider under\nthe Duterte administration. The NCR nominal minimum wage of Php491 in\nJuly 2016 was only 54.6% of the Php900 FLW for a family of five at\nthe time. Today, the NCR minimum wage of Php537 is just 53.5% of the\nPhp1,004 FLW for a family of five. The wage gap is even wider for a\nfamily of six where the NCR minimum wage is just 44.6% of the\nrequired Php1,205 FLW.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nresearch group said that real wages falling even further behind\neconomic growth is worsening the elitist and exclusionary character\nof the economy. Moreover, improving labor productivity is not\ntranslating to benefits for the working people but is instead going\nto bloating corporate profits and oligarch wealth. The people are\nleft to struggle with the rising costs of their food and non-food\nneeds. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON\nstressed that the Duterte government is very much in a position to\nchange this situation. Among the most important measures is ensuring\nsufficient incomes for workers by legislating a national minimum wage\nof Php750. IBON\u2019s estimates using the latest available data, for\n2016, show that a Php750 minimum wage in NCR will only cost 9.8% of\nthe profits of establishments and still leave them with Php1.17\ntrillion in profits. The increase in welfare for millions of workers\nand their families will however be palpable.###<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wages of workers in the National Capital Region (NCR) continue to fall even as their growing labor productivity drives economic growth under the Duterte government. The mandated minimum wage is not even keeping up with the rising cost of living for ordinary Filipinos. Research group IBON said that keeping wages low distributes wealth unevenly and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[14],"tags":[347,258,281,279,1592,363,2007,146,2006,561,135],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7971"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7971"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7975,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7971\/revisions\/7975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}