We should be deeply concerned by the fact that inflation has outpaced wage growth for 56 consecutive months, as per reports from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).
This streak of stagnant earnings falling behind soaring commodity prices can no longer be seen as a temporary metric of market friction and must be called what it is, and what it has been for some time - a full-blown livelihood crisis eroding the very fabric of our working and middle classes.
What must be recognized is the human toll behind these metrics, which is extremely stark. National survey data from BBS shows that to bridge the current shortfall, a staggering 47.42% of Bangladeshi households - and over 51% in rural areas - are needing to take on high-interest informal debt simply to put food on the table.
When citizens are forced to borrow money not to build assets, but to cover daily meals and basic utilities, we can conclude that the state’s socio-economic safety net has effectively failed. Given that this has been ongoing for almost five years now, this failure must be attributed to every single administration we have had during this time period.
In the absence of enforceable wage protections and automatic inflation-adjusted pay revisions, workers and employees alike are forced to absorb the full, brutal impact of macroeconomic shocks while corporate margins and profits remain shielded.
We cannot have a government that continues to remain a passive spectator to this erosion of basic purchasing power. Economic progress that enriches a privileged few while draining the savings of the working majority is morally indefensible, structurally unsustainable, and not the kind of progress any nation should be proud of.
The state must act now to restore real wages before our economic squeeze fractures our society beyond repair.