News
End of July brings end of Living Wage Study says Premier
By Dana Malcolm
Staff Writer
#TurksandCaicos, July 25, 2022 – The consultants carrying out the living wage study commissioned by the Government to assess how much a baseline wage for TCI Islanders needs to be are almost ready to provide a preliminary report according to Premier Washington Misick in a press conference on Thursday July 14.
“A preliminary report will be finalized at the end of this month,” he said. “Our intention is to look at what a
The Government has shied away from raising the minimum wage in the past several months instead focusing on creating a living wage. Misick maintained that social help would go hand in hand with creating this living wage citing projects like daycare for low income households and nutritional grants, as examples.
“By the time you add all of those together the living wage will be significantly higher than a minimum wage,” he explained.
That living wage will have to contend with inflation though as the inflation rate in the Turks and Caicos was revealed to be 9.1 percent on Thursday. This is after a 38 percent spike in food prices and a 23 percent hike in electricity.
The US and UK are both recording the same 9.1% inflation rate as they struggle to get prices down as well. In the Caribbean, Jamaicans are battling a 10.9 percent inflation rate while the Bahamas has a 4.1 percent inflation rate and in the East, Japan’s inflation rate is 2.5 percent.
As the TCI gets most of its food and essential imports from the US, it is not unusual for the country to inherit their high inflation rates.
Regardless, Misick says the survey is progressing well.
He maintained that he would not leave the people out of the loop and said there would have to be public consultations before the study was concluded.