The cost of living has risen sharply in 2026, with South Africans feeling its impact in nearly every aspect of daily life.
While the cost of living is increasing, salaries are not doing the same, as it has become difficult to discern how much a person actually needs to survive.
To offer some guidance, as well as champion better salaries locally, the Living Wage South Africa Network (LWSAN) has shared its latest living wage for the country.
To that end, LWSAN says South Africans should be netting at least R20 000 per month for a 40-hour work week, if they wish to achieve a “decent, albeit humble, standard of living and level of dignity.”
“We encourage businesses and government entities to adopt this living wage voluntarily as a matter of human decency and social sustainability,” emphasised Professor Ines Meyer, chairperson of the LWSAN, in a release shared with Hypertext.
As for how LWSAN come to this latest figure, it unpacked its methodology as follows:
- A study of 2 000 participants revealed a cost of living range from which the 2026 living wage was developed.
- The average respondent with net pay below R14 000 was unable to live a decent life, whereas everyone with net pay above R25 000 could do so to at least some extent.
“We settled on the midpoint of R20,000 because it adequately satisfies the four main criteria that qualify the living wage at a national level,” noted Meyer.
LWSAN was also careful to point out that the living wage it has outlined differs substantially from the national minimum wage, which is legislated after negotiations between between the government, business, industry experts, and labour representatives.
The organisation also highlighted that focusing on a living wage over a minimum wage would go a long way to addressing many of the unmet needs of South Africans, which is something that the minimum wage often overlooks by not factoring in the intangible elements that impact people across the country.
“When people earn at least the living wage, they can spend more on previously unmet needs, which creates greater demand on production and for labour, which creates more jobs, and so on. If people earn enough not to stress about money, they also become more productive employees. It is an investment rather than a cost to the business,” noted Meyer.
Whether a living wage can ever be legislated in South Africa remains unclear at this stage, with the minimum wage still being the standard that government is happy to abide by. Should this continue, dignity will not be attained for most of the country, let alone having enough money to survive month-to-month.
“Everyone has inherent dignity and the right to have their dignity respected and protected. We need to stop seeing the Constitution as a mere legal reference but rather a call to action that motivates us to uplift those for whom it was written; the living wage provides that opportunity,” concluded Meyer.
[Image – Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash]
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