By Dylan Bettencourt
- After paying for taxis and electricity, a minimum wage worker is left with about R1,824, far below the cost of basic food.
- Families face a monthly food shortfall of over R1,850, pushing working households deeper into debt and hunger.
The December 2025 Household Affordability Index shows that a worker earning the national minimum wage cannot afford transport, electricity and food in the same month.
After paying for taxis to work and prepaid electricity, a full-time minimum wage worker is left with about R1,824. But the cost of basic food for a family of four is R3,678. That leaves a shortfall of more than R1,850 every month.
Even if every remaining rand is spent on food, each person in the household would get about R456 a month to eat. That is well below South Africa’s food poverty line of R777 per person.
The data shows that the national minimum wage is not enough to cover the most basic costs of living. Workers are forced to cut back on food, take on debt, or skip essentials just to survive.
The report warns that this traps working families deeper in poverty, even though they are employed and working full time.
Pictured above: A wallet.
Image source: File
