Sixty percent of people in Taiwan are underpaid, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday as he urged President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration to draw up policies to help resolve rising retail and housing prices, as well as stagnant wages.
The Executive Yuan on Jan. 6 announced that the consumer price index for last year was at a 14-year high of 2.95 percent.
Last year, the government touted an IMF report that said Taiwan’s per capita income of US$35,510 had exceeded South Korea’s US$33,590 and US$34,360 in Japan.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
Taiwanese are concerned about day-to-day matters, including rising prices for drinks, tea eggs, boxed lunches and even tangyuan (湯圓, glutinous rice balls with flavored fillings traditionally eaten during the Lantern Festival), Chu told a news conference in Taipei.
Despite a general increase of NT$5 for most items, wages have not increased, Chu said, adding that the government’s claims about improved wages do not take into consideration the effects of inflation.
High housing prices are among the top 10 complaints, Chu said, citing Sinyi Housing Price Index results that showed a fourfold increase in realty prices from 36.47 in 2001 to 144.58 in the third quarter of last year.
However, the average individual wage has only increased by NT$10,000 — to N$44,000 from NT$34,000 — in that period, so it is not difficult to understand why young people are pessimistic about buying a home, he said.
Ko Chih-en (柯志恩), executive director of the KMT’s National Policy Foundation, was also scathing of the government’s comments on income.
Claims that per capita income in Taiwan has exceeded South Korea is propaganda, Ko told the news conference.
Average income across industries can vary greatly, Ko said. For example, the average income in Taiwan’s electronic component manufacturing industry is 2.6 times greater than in the education industry.
The average salary is NT$670,000, but almost 60 percent make less than NT$50,000 a month and more than 30 percent make less than NT$42,000 per month, she said.
KMT Evaluation and Discipline Committee head Terry Huang (黃怡騰), a Consumers’ Foundation board member, said the argument made by the Tsai administration that there are “higher prices in other countries” obfuscated the facts.
Taiwan has a problem with rising retail prices regardless of what is happening overseas, Huang said.
Taiwan’s per capita income exceeding South Korea’s is simply the result of shifting international exchange rates, he said.
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