Malta’s Current Income Is ‘No Guarantee Of Dignity’, Alliance Against Poverty Argues
The Alleanza Kontra l-Faqar (Alliance Against Poverty) has released a statement recognising the Government’s realisation of poverty in Malta, noting over the years that some of the lower bands of the impoverished have continued to decrease. However, AKF goes on to point at some very worrying statistics, and the potential reasons behind them.
AKF made reference to reports on income and living conditions that were published recently by the National Statistics Office on people living below the poverty threshold… that is, those people without the basic necessities of a dignified life, defined by the means of being unable to afford a one-week holiday annually, access to a meal with meat, fish or poultry at least every second day, durable white goods like washing machines, and so on.
AKF goes on to say that in Malta there are different levels of poverty, but with almost 80,000 people with an annual income of less than €9,000, it poses the question of validity on previous statements put forward by other governing bodies.
Earlier this month, it was reported that those earning less than €8,868 annually fell below the poverty line, but from the previous year, a decrease in those facing material deprivation was detailed at 0.3%.
AKF believes that living so close to the risk of falling below the poverty line is not reflected with the quality of life statements being made recently either, with 17% of the population exposed to impoverished effects.
Interestingly enough, only 6.4% of people at jeopardy of falling into poverty are people who work full-time without suffering the full effects of material deprivation. To AKF, this means that the current state of income in Malta is the driving factor behind the numbers falling below the belt.
AKF has long been stating that it believes regulation of sorts is needed to measure the several different bands of the impoverished sects of society.
Among the 80,000 people who were listed as being at risk are also pensioners, single parents, larger families, etc and these anomalies in the current measurement procedures are what cause the stark contrast in how poverty and the quality of life in Malta correlate.
The Caritas report of 2012 and 2016, A minimum essential budget for a decent living, showed that different family types have different respective wants and needs and motivating factors and will therefore also have different possible minimum incomes that are able to provide them with a comfortable way of living. AKF also notes that we don’t tend to hear about these reports all too often when it comes to the comparing of income against the quality of life.
Insisting that poverty comes from the fact that inflation is not something everyone is affected by equally, AKF proposed a change in how the cost of living is calculated.
AFK is proposing the need to distinguish the different groups of society (nuclear families from single-parent families, etc) and the necessity to apply respective calculations to each specific group.
Until now, the NSO has always worked with one single calculation in accordance to the price index (RPI) and that in turn gives rise to the cost of living for everyone when it is common knowledge that the less you earn the more your spend on basic necessities of life; a means of unintentional overcompensation.
As it is, the system is highly unfair, the RPI does not catch the cost of living for the poor and cost of living increases to certain groups, like pensioners, is uncompensated and void – the result then being more and more people falling further down the line of poverty.
Finally, the Alliance Against Poverty affirmed the need for a serious national debate on a living income in place of the current earning methods.
“The minimum wage in Malta is no guarantee of dignity.”
Going on to close their statement with a reflection on the introduction of a living income – whereby a worker is paid enough to provide for their basic needs because of their industry and not their specific employer, location, etc – would be an essential step forward for everyone in the country to live a decent life that befits humanity.