GOOD Statement by Brett Herron, Unite for Change Leadership Council Member& GOOD Secretary-General:
As of 1 March 2026, South Africa’s minimum wage will rise from R28.79 to R30.23 an hour. On paper, that sounds like progress. An extra R1.44 an hour. An extra R230.40 a month. A gesture toward dignity.
We welcome the increase. It matters. It will help workers claw back a fraction of what inflation has stolen.
But let’s be honest: this increase does not end poverty. It manages it.
Take domestic workers. Predominantly women. Predominantly black. Still living with the spatial scars of apartheid planning that pushed working-class families to the margins of our cities.
A domestic worker travelling from Eerste River into Cape Town’s CBD will spend roughly R50 a day on a return taxi. That’s R250 a week. Around R1000 a month. If she takes the Golden Arrow bus into the leafy suburbs, she may spend anywhere between R900 and R1500 a month.
Let’s do the maths.
At R30.23 an hour, a full-time worker earns about R241.84 a day. Over a month, that’s R4836.80 – up from R4606.40. An increase of R230.40.
Transport alone can swallow a fifth of that salary.
After transport, she is left with roughly R3836.80 – if she is lucky.
From that must come rent. Electricity. Food. School transport. Uniforms. Sanitary products. Airtime. The invisible costs of survival.
In a single-earner household – a common place issue in South Africa – that R3,836.80 stretches across multiple lives.
If she has two children and no other financial support, that works out to roughly R1278.93 per person per month.
The lower-bound poverty line sits around R1415.
That means a full-time worker can still fall below the poverty line.
Let that sink in.
A woman can work 40 hours a week – cleaning homes, raising other people’s children, caring for the elderly – and still not earn enough to escape poverty herself.
It produces what we politely call the “working poor”. People who wake before sunrise, work full-time, and still cannot afford a basic standard of living.
According to recent reporting from FoodForward SA, food insecurity is significantly higher in women-led households.
Of course it is. When your income barely covers transport and rent, food becomes the shock absorber. Meals get skipped. Portions shrink. Nutrition suffers quietly.
And yet, there are still political parties that oppose the minimum wage.
Without it, we are told, the market would sort things out. Employers would pay fairly. Competition would raise standards.
But history tells a different story. Before minimum wage protections, exploitation was not theoretical, it was rampant. Workers were paid in goods instead of wages.
Paid inconsistently. Paid late. Paid whatever an employer decided they were “worth.”
The minimum wage does not create exploitation. It limits it.
R30.23 an hour is not generous. It is not luxurious. It is R241.84 for an eight-hour day of physical labour. It is survival money.
And even then, it is barely enough.
If a person works full-time, they should not face the risk of poverty. That should not be controversial. It should be the bare minimum of a society that claims to value dignity.
So, to those who oppose minimum wage: tell us what you believe a domestic worker’s labour is worth. Tell us what price you would put on eight hours of cleaning, caregiving, cooking, and emotional labour. Tell us what number you are comfortable defending publicly.
Because what this debate really is about, is not economics. It is about whose work we value, and whose poverty we are willing to tolerate.
South Africa cannot continue normalising a system where women who keep households running cannot afford to feed their own families.
A R1.44 increase per hour is welcome. But it is not justice.
Justice would mean that full-time work guarantees a life above poverty. Justice would mean dismantling the transport burden created by apartheid geography. Justice would mean recognising that domestic work is real work and paying it accordingly.
Until then, we will continue producing the working poor, people who do everything right, and are still forced to live on the edge.
That is not an accident. It is a policy choice.
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