Honest Work or Decent Pay?

Shortly after my last post, I stumbled across a study by Solidarity Helping Hand about beggars in South Africa. According to the survey 

• Begging is not just for those without education: while the majority (60%) of beggars had no matric, a surprising 20% had passed matric and 7% even indicated that they held higher education qualifications 
• Begging can be a survival strategy: 43% of all beggars said they had been begging for between one and five years; 12% had lived off begging for more than 10 years 
• Beggars “work” overtime: 65% of beggars indicated that they beg every day for 8 or more hours, 15% stick to working weeks and only beg from Monday to Friday 
• Beggars have guilty pleasures too: Beggars spend the majority of their money on food and basic necessities, but a whopping 18% stated that they also buy alcohol and cigarettes 

But the most surprising finding from the survey was that begging doesn’t pay all that bad at all: Around 40% of beggars said they “earned” less than R100 a day, but just as many stated that they earned more than R100 a day with 7% claiming that they made more than R500 a day. 

Putting these figures into perspective, the minimum daily wage for farm workers is currently R69. Since the beginning of the year, farm workers have been striking (what else?) for a rise in the minimum wage to a level that will actually allow them to live of their salary. The current wage offer stands at R105 - workers claim that this is still not enough to support their families, farm owners claim that it is too much and will make them unprofitable and so the saga continues… 

Looking at these numbers, farm workers, who spend their day doing physically hard work under the burning sun, would actually be better off standing by the side of the road begging for money. Even after an increase in the minimum wages, they would often earn more if they abandoned the idea of wanting to work to make an honest living and simply begged for money.

In a country with unemployment rates around 40%, this is clearly not sending the right signal to those who actually want to find work rather than live of other people and the state.

Honest work... 

... decent pay