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02-05-2023
HONG KONG SAR: In her apartment in Sham Shui Po, 60-year-old Mrs Chan heats up leftover chicken for her teenage daughter. Their rented apartment is only 23 square metres (248 square feet), and the kitchen is cramped, filled with bags of rice and canned food from the local food bank.
Still, the family of four have no choice but to make do.
Her daughter had asked her if they could eat steamed fish for dinner. But by the time Chan finished her shift, the markets were already closed. In any case, she could not afford the ingredients that day.
“My ideal life would be to have a higher salary, so we could have a better life. Then, I would make more soup for my daughter,” she told Al Jazeera.
“When I do make soup, I dare not drink it. I want to keep it all for her.”
After a four-year freeze, Hong Kong’s minimum wage on Monday increased by 2.50 Hong Kong dollars ($0.32) to 40 Hong Kong dollars ($5.10) per hour, a rise of 6.25 percent.
The change means Chan’s earnings will go up but she said it will not make much difference for her family.
“There is only an increase of 20 Hong Kong dollars ($2.55) per day and around 520 Hong Kong dollars ($66.24) per month. It’s not even enough to cover my daughter’s tutorial fees, which are 280 Hong Kong dollars ($35.67) per 1.5 hours,” Chan, who asked to be identified by a pseudonym, said.
“The small increase cannot beat inflation. Food is very expensive in Hong Kong. We normally have a simple dinner but still, everything is an expense.”
Chan lives in one of the poorest areas of Hong Kong, a city with one of the most severe wealth gaps on earth. According to April data from the Census and Statistics Department, Sham Shui Po has a median household income of 22,280 Hong Kong dollars ($2,838), compared to 28,300 Hong Kong dollars ($3,605) for the Chinese territory as a whole. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
