Cape Town - South African families are being financially squeezed and are operating on shrinking budgets as jobs dwindle in agriculture and manufacturing and the prices of food and other vital groceries continue to increase.
The most recent earnings data from Statistics SA’s Quarterly Employment Statistics (QES) and the SA Reserve Bank (SARB) show that many families are operating under constrained budgets.
SARB said real economic activity in South Africa contracted by 0.7% in the second quarter of 2022 and the net wealth of households declined in the second quarter of 2022, as total assets decreased while total liabilities increased.
On top of this, Stats SA reported that despite fuel prices dropping slightly in August, the price of bread, cereal, meat, milk, eggs, cheese, rooibos tea, instant coffee, detergents and laundry soap had increased in price.
Athlone pensioner Mariam Mott said food was becoming so expensive it was “like performing the biblical miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes every day” just to feed her family.
“The stuff is so expensive, it makes you want to cry sometimes because you wonder how you are going to do it all. When I buy a bar of soap, I cut it in half to make it last longer.”
Mott’s household includes her son’s family of three. She said other than her pension, she relied on support from family members who helped her by donating food when possible.
Mott said she was better off than some of her neighbours whose houses were occupied by six or seven people, none of whom were employed.
Community activist Kashiefa Adams said the increasing costs were crippling families, and if the average working person was feeling the brunt, it was much worse for the unemployed and those in low-paying jobs.
“The increase of these prices is the biggest injustice, and equivalent to organised crime. Items are overpriced and more than 35% of our kids in the Western Cape do not get adequate nutrition daily, not because there is a lack of food, but because it costs too much,” she said.
Trade union UASA’s spokesperson, Abigail Moyo, said: “We are saddened to see our economy shrink before our eyes and jobless workers survive from hand to mouth.”
She said beyond the dismal employment numbers from Stats SA, lurked the reality of millions of impoverished South Africans in dire need of employment.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za