The National Treasury of South Africa released a snapshot of income distribution in the country and it tells a proper story of how dire things are. The exchange rate with the 1 USD versus Rand is R16.48 so the people earning less than $9K to as little as $5.5K per annum are in the top 20% of all income earners in South Africa. Basically the others are all unemployed because minimum wage is R30.23 per hour or $1.84 which would get your income close to around the top 20%.
Being in the top one or two percent is not like being in the top 5% in any other country in the West and why it is hard to understand unless you are living this seeing the despair daily. When you are in a business environment you understand the stats are stacked up against you as the target market is not the masses and is the 5% who can afford to buy your product which is less than 2 million people.
I told you the economy was lopsided due to the high unemployment and why only a small percentage of the population pay taxes which covers the cost of everyone else. The base rate for taxing kicks in at salaries earning over R99K per year so according to the National treasury those featured on this chart are the tac payers for the entire country. This is less than 8 million people paying for a population of 65 million plus.
The tax rates cannot be increased because the government has got to the point that the more they increase the less they will receive so this is a fine balancing act. I say cannot. but you can bet your bottom dollar they will increase taxes because this is dumber meets dumber playing with the finances of the country. They know no other way of how to fix this as increasing taxes is all they know.
I saw these numbers whilst compiling this post and South Africa sits in second spot for the average salaries per country in Africa. With SA being so top heavy and lop sided these figures could easily be true even though the unemployment rate is in the 60% region. The top 1% has some big hitters who are earning seriously big money which would increase the total average even for those not earning any money.
Someone earning R42K per month is being taxed at the same rate as someone who is earning R420K in Europe yet the R42K is used to cover private medical, schooling which is not as necessary in Europe.
When you see these types of stats those countries in Africa think of South Africa as a honey pot when in reality the country is no different from where they have left and is actually far worse as there is no work opportunities.
What is slightly puzzling is South Africa does not even make this list of countries by number of people in extreme poverty. I think the way the SA Government manipulates the stats which hides the fact and at least half the country lives below the breadline. The $20 aid or grant those unemployed receive maybe helps reduce the "extreme poverty" tag. These figures on this table above also directly highlight those migrants seeking asylum globally and they are economic migrants and nothing else which should not be an acceptable reason to seek asylum.
