It never rains but it pours. While taking a huge political gamble by trying to amend the Constitution to raise the retirement ages of the judges of the Superior Courts and grappling with numerous problems caused by an unfolding El Niño event, the JVP-NPP government has another potential issue to contend with; it is likely to come under intense pressure to grant the public sector employees a substantial pay hike and some tangible relief to other salaried workers.
Sri Lanka ranks 120th out of 130 countries in the latest Visual Capitalist (VC) global minimum wage comparison, based on data from the International Labour Organisation. The VC report puts Sri Lanka’s monthly minimum wage, measured in purchasing-power terms, at the equivalent of USD 200, placing it among the lowest in the world. Sri Lanka also ranks last among the South Asian countries covered by the index. Pakistan ranks 68th with USD 570, followed by Nepal at 78th with USD 490, Bangladesh at 89th with USD 379 and India at 111th with USD 233.
Sri Lanka’s appallingly low ranking in the VC minimum age index could not have come at a worse time for the JVP-NPP government, which is now in the process of preparing Budget 2027. It will prompt the state sector trade unions which have been up in arms against the high cost of living to demand higher pay.
One may recall that among the numerous relief measures the NPP promised the public in the run-up to the 2024 elections were biannual pay hikes for state employees, a 30% power tariff decrease, substantial fuel price reductions, and tax exemptions for essential goods. The NPP leaders said funds would not be a problem because they would eliminate corruption and recover the country’s stolen assets. There is no way the government can claim that it is without adequate funds to meet workers’ demand for pay hikes. Its leaders have been boasting that the Treasury is overflowing with funds. After all, in 2025, President Anura Kumara declared in Parliament that a household would receive as much as one million rupees even if a single roofing sheet had been blown away by Cyclone Ditwah.
Taxes of one kind or another already take a sizeable bite out of household incomes. The government is doing its best to convince the IMF that there is no need for a property tax as the country’s tax revenue has increased significantly. However, whether its efforts will reach fruition remains to be seen. While fighting for power, leftist movements like the JVP frequently project themselves as Robin Hood and his Merry Men, promising to champion the rights of the poor, fight corruption, and redistribute wealth through progressive or “Robin Hood” taxes, but the JVP/NPP, ensconced in power, is behaving like Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham, squeezing the taxpayers dry to raise government revenue.
Sri Lankans are facing a double whammy of falling purchasing power and a soaring cost of living. Prices of some essential food items have increased again. Millers exploit farmers and consumers alike with impunity. They make huge profits and buy helicopters and Rolls-Royces while farmers are selling their movable and immovable assets to repay loans and consumers are pawning their valuables as they have no other way of dulling the pangs of hunger, under a government of self-proclaimed Marxists who coined pithy political slogans, such as ‘unta Lamborghini, apita badagini—’Lamborghinis for them and hunger for us’ to muster popular support, while out of power.
Going by World Bank data, Sri Lanka’s poverty rate is likely to remain above 22% through the current year. People are struggling to make ends meet. Needless to say, pecuniary woes have made them extremely unhappy. This fact is borne out by the 2026 World Happiness Report, wherein Nepal ranks 99th, Pakistan 104th, India 116th, Bangladesh 127th and Sri Lanka 134th out of 147 countries. The countries ranked below Sri Lanka are Ethiopia, Comoros, Eswatini, Tanzania, Egypt, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lebanon, Yemen, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Afghanistan.
It is said that in ancient Rome, rulers used bread and circuses or panem et circenses to distract people from political problems and loss of freedom. In this country, people are apparently being treated to only circuses to distract them from food issues and serious politico-economic problems. There are frequent arrests, which receive wide publicity, and government politicians bellow rhetoric, vowing to eliminate corruption, while people are demanding relief.
It may be said that when the wolf is at the door, people’s love for a government flies out of the window, as we saw during the SLFP-led United Front government (1970-1977) and the SLPP government (2019-2024). Both those administrations had two-thirds majorities. Huge parliamentary majorities of governments count for nothing when people are struggling to keep their heads above water and their pleas for relief go unheeded.
