The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A FORMER Chamber of Commerce chief executive yesterday said the Government must look at meeting its citizens’ “basic needs” first to determine what is the proper liveable wage.

Edison Sumner, principal of Sumner Strategic Partners, told the Bahamas Institute of Chartered Accountants’s (BICA) Accountants Week seminars that wages must allow workers to afford food, clothing and shelter.

Leaning on a study conducted by University of The Bahamas (UoB) researchers in 2020, which pegged a liveable wage for a family of four at $2,625 and $3,550 per month, respectively, for New Providence and Grand Bahama, Mr Sumner said: “The methodologies for estimating liveable wage has to do with the cost of food, the cost of the potential need, the housing and other particulars.

“This constitutes the basic, decent life for a requisite size family of four or five individuals, parents and children.” The Government, having just increased The Bahamas’ minimum wage to $260 per week, has signalled it will not give up on its push for a liveable wage for all Bahamians.

The Bahamas, though, had the second the highest minimum wage in the Caribbean behind Aruba based on a 40 hour-work week back in 2015. “You will see that in 2015, with our last minimum wage adjustment, we were actually spending $5.25 an hour,” Mr Sumner said. “Aruba is the only country ahead of us paying $5.58 an hour, and this is all based on a 40-hour work week.

“If you look all the way down at the bottom of the chart, you’re going to see where Haiti was earning only 25 cents an hour for eight more hours of work a day.” The Bahamas now has the highest minimum wage in the region at $6.50 an hour, while Aruba has only just reached $5.90 an hour.

Mr Sumner said: “The question is now: Is the minimum wage enough? Throughout the entire process of determining the issue of minimum wage, there has to be stakeholder engagement.

“There has to be a collaboration, which I think has happened in the past. It’s happening now, where private sector employers have to now be able to negotiate with the workers’ representatives and the Government. They can then determine if the minimum wage is sufficient and whether there ought to be the advancement of a living wage in in the Bahamas.”