LIVING COSTS & MINIMUM WAGE

[Anchor Lead]

Living costs of salaried laborers are one of the criteria for determining workers’ minimum wage. Its goal is to take into account expenses spent on maintaining livelihood when setting the minimum wages. But some critics are saying that the calculation fails to reflect the reality.

[Pkg]

Yoo Chae-rin busily goes up and down the stairs.

[Soundbite] "This is a gas-meter reader."

This 47 year-old gas meter reader earns some two million won a month. It is just slightly over minimum wage. This is the only income she and her teenage daughter relies on. Nearly nothing is left after spending on basic necessities, like expenses on food and education.

[Soundbite] Yoo Chae-rin(Gas meter reader) : "My child goes to school and takes classes at cram schools and I need money to cover such basic spending."

But two-member families like Yoo’s are not included when analyzing living expenses for setting the minimum wage. The Minimum Wage Commission includes just single-person households when analyzing living expenses based on data provided by Statistics Korea. Families of two or more persons need greater living costs than singe-person households. Yet, they are not reflected on the data. In reality, many workers support their families with earnings as small as minimum wage. According to a study that multiplied the number of workers in the family by 110 percent of the minimum wage, two-member families take up the largest portion of households living on minimum wage. Three-person families account for nearly 20 percent.

[Soundbite] Kim Sun-kyung(Supermarket employee(Three-person family) : "I currently receive 10,760 won per hour. I spend the largest portion on groceries. There's nearly nothing left for savings."

[Soundbite] Lee Jeong-ah(Korea Employment Information Service) : "The number of unmarried workers living alone is very small. So the current method cannot include other groups of workers affected by minimum wage. Therefore, they are poorly represented."

The commission’s reform task force once recommended that living costs of families in various types be considered in determining the minimum wage. But the business sector opposes this opinion, saying that the minimum wage must be calculated based on wages for unmarried workers living alone. They added it would be off point if living expenses for other family members are calculated.