Even the most modest and wretched man can not live in Armenia with AMD 45 thousand. It can not live alone, moreover to take care of its children. It is excluded. I do not know what international standards were used to calculate the threshold, they say that, as if, there are countries in the world where people live on two dollars a week. I do not know, I do not want to argue, perhaps, the prices in those countries are lower, or people stomachs are built differently. But, in Armenia, I am sure there is no one.
But, as the Minister of Justice said recently, the cheapest thing is the populism. Let’s look at the issue from the other side. Increasing the minimum wage by AMD 10 thousand can lead to some positive outcome. The problem is that in many private companies people mainly receive “white” and “black” wages. Now let’s assume that the employee’s real salary is AMD 100 thousand: before he was receiving AMD 35 thousand “white” and AMD 65 thousand “black.” Now the employer will not raise his salary, but he will get AMD 45 thousand “white” and AMD 55 thousand “black.” The employee will not gain anything. But the government can gain because the shadow, at least in theory, will be reduced, and the tax paid from AMD 45 thousand will be more than from AMD 35 thousand.
I am saying iffy about all these things because I’m not absolutely sure that the money going to the budget promote the prosperity and strengthening of my country, that the additional tax, which I, as an employer, am going to pay to the budget, will help our pensioners, our poor and our army. The Prime Minister gets offended when we, citizens, express such doubts, but why we do not express our opinion if there is, let’s say, no construction in Armenia that is ordered by a governmental body where the so-called ‘kickback’ is not functioning in this or that way. Is there a naive in our country who believes that it is not so?
The problem, therefore, is not so much the minimum wage as the deficit in trust. Of course, people do not trust in public institutions, including the media, and, of course, they have grounds for it. But the priority is the mistrust in the state, which, let’s confess, was also present during the Soviet era, which is doubled and tripled during the period of independence. And the media are not to blame who “mistakenly run after sensational news”, but the political system being rotten cap-a-pie.
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How to restore the trust? It’s very simple, by arresting and judging 10-20 high rank bureaucrats. But how to do it, if, as people say, one’s tale is under the other’s.
Once there is a confidence in the government and particularly in the mechanisms of state budget expenditures, the minimum wage should be increased up to AMD 100 thousand. The government and, consequently, the citizens would only benefit.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
