Dear Editor,
My most recent letter to the press had arbitrarily proposed a monthly minimum wage of G$146,000 for public servants, which is often called a guesstimate in economic parlance. I have taken the time to do an evaluation of this figure based on some generalized estimates of monthly expenses of the man in the street in an effort to provide some perspective on its reasonableness, given that it is in excess of 265 percent of the current public service minimum of G$55,000. This is set out below.
Monthly Utilization of Minimum Salary of Public Servants.
Gross Salary 146,000
Deduction 60,000
Taxable Income 86,000
Income Tax 28% 24,080
NIS 5.6% 8,176
Total Deduction 32,256
Net Salary 113,744
Fixed monthly expenses excluding food, clothing, dependents and other miscellaneous expenses
Rent 30,000
Guyana Power & Light 5,000
GTT 1,000
Cell phone/net charges 7,000
Transportation 9,000
Loans 12,000
Total Fixed Expenses 64,000
Balance 49,744
Weekly available spending money 12,436
Some notes to the figures: The rental figure reflects an estimated average of rental expenses nationally. Actual figures within both Georgetown and beyond will vary. Persons living outside of George-town, may have lower rental costs, but this may be accompanied by increased transportation costs if they have to travel to Georgetown to work. As indicated in the table itself, the monthly expense data exclude costs related to the support of dependents, expenses on food, clothing and other miscellaneous items. Without getting into additional details, I think the point has been made.
Yours faithfully,
Craig Sylvester
