Ten recommendations to government for the worker living on 975 a month

By Horace Palacio: Let us begin with arithmetic every policymaker should carry in their pocket.

The minimum wage in Belize is five dollars an hour. A full legal week of 45 hours earns 225 dollars. Across a month, roughly 975 dollars before a single deduction.

Now walk that money through a real Belizean month. Rent. Light. Water. Butane. Bus fare, ten rides a week. Then the grocery, with children to feed for four more weeks.

The month is longer than the money. Every minimum wage worker knows this arithmetic in their bones. And with the median income in this country sitting near one thousand dollars a month, half of working Belize lives in or near it. This is not the edge of our economy. It is the center of it.

Government has heard the cry, and to its credit, it is responding. The wage rose from 3.30 to five dollars in 2023, lifting more than thirty thousand workers, and a move to six dollars is now on the table under Plan Belize 2.0. The instinct behind it is decent and human, and I respect it.

Last month in these pages I made the case for caution on mandates alone, and the Prime Minister himself has acknowledged the tension, businesses can only pay what they can pay. I will not relitigate that today. Today I want to do something more useful than argue. I want to help.

Because here is the insight that should drive national policy. A dollar more per hour puts about 195 extra dollars a month in a worker’s pocket. Worthy. But there is a second lever, just as real and often more powerful, that government controls more directly. Lower what the worker must pay, and raise what the worker can earn. Relief on that side cannot be eaten by prices, costs no employer a job, and compounds year after year.

So, respectfully, here are ten recommendations to Cabinet. A worker’s agenda. Every one actionable, most of them this year, and together worth far more than any single number on a wage order.

Recommendation one. Feed the children from Belizean farms. Launch the national school feeding program sourced entirely from local agriculture. One program, three victories, guaranteed demand for our farmers, nourished students, and a grocery bill lifted off every working mother. The cheapest raise in the country is a school plate.

Recommendation two. Drive down the cost of power. Electricity hides inside every price, because every shop and mill pays it and passes it on. Fast-track renewable licensing, let businesses generate and feed the grid, and make cheap energy the national project it deserves to be. Cut the light bill and you have raised every wage in Belize at once.

Recommendation three. Open the road to ownership. Rent is the heaviest stone on the worker’s back. Clear the title backlogs, unlock residential land, and build the low-cost path to a lot and a home through our development finance and credit unions. The family that escapes rent has received the largest raise of their lives, and no employer paid a cent of it.

Recommendation four. Lighten the basket. The low-wage worker pays little income tax but pays GST and duties inside nearly everything she touches. Widen the zero-rated basket of true essentials and trim the duties on the staples of survival. A smaller government bite at the border walks the same 975 dollars measurably farther.

Recommendation five. Referee the marketplace. In a small market, a handful of importers can control whole categories, and where competition sleeps, prices feast. Establish real competition oversight and continue modernizing port and customs costs, because every efficiency won at the wharf lands on every shelf in the country. Competition is a price cut no one has to legislate.

Recommendation six. Deliver dignified transport. The worker pays twice to reach the job, in fare and in hours lost beside the highway. A modern, reliable, affordable bus system hands the poorest workers back both money and time, and time is the one wage everyone earns.

Recommendation seven. Build ladders out of minimum wage. Here is a national goal worth printing on a banner. Fewer Belizeans trapped at the floor. Make technical and vocational training free and everywhere, and scale the digital skills programs from dozens of trainees to thousands. Government has planted this seed already. Water it tenfold. A floor holds a worker up. A ladder moves a worker up.

Recommendation eight. Solve childcare. Across Belize, a second parent stays home because childcare costs more than the wage it would free. Affordable community childcare unlocks a second income per household, and a second income is not a 195 dollar raise. It can double what a family lives on. Few policies on earth deliver more relief per dollar.

Recommendation nine. Enforce the promises already made. The five dollars, the overtime at time and a half, the social security contributions, these are already the law, and workers across this country are not receiving them. Staff the Labour Department, empower its inspectors, and collect what is owed. Enforcement is a raise that requires no new legislation, only resolve.

Recommendation ten. Free the side hustle. The woman selling dinners on Friday and the man cutting yards on Sunday are the economy trying to grow. Make micro business licensing nearly free and instant, and market the small business tax amnesty like a national campaign. Let the wage job be the floor a Belizean stands on while building something of her own.

There it is, Cabinet. Ten recommendations. None requires a miracle. Together they attack the worker’s month from both ends, shrinking the bills and growing the earnings, in ways no price increase can claw back and no employer must fund with layoffs.

And here is the beautiful part. This agenda does not compete with the wage discussion. It completes it. Raise the number when the economy can carry it, but raise the worth of every dollar starting now. A six dollar wage in a country with cheaper food, cheaper power, cheaper transport, owned homes, trained workers, and enforced laws is a genuinely different life. That is the prize.

Prime Minister, honourable ministers, the worker on 975 a month is not asking for charity. She is asking for a month that finally matches her money. The ten doors above are all within your reach, and several are within your reach before Christmas.

History rarely remembers the size of a wage order. It remembers the government that made the ordinary worker’s life genuinely lighter.

Open the doors. The workers of Belize are ready to walk through.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author, Horace Palacio, and do not necessarily reflect the views or editorial stance of Breaking Belize News.

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