Thousands of garment workers took to the streets. Clashes with police and incidents such as vehicles being set on fire unfolded within a short time. The workers are demanding a minimum wage of Tk 30,000.
Some have expressed irritation, asking whether workers have become too demanding—is Tk 30,000 something that can simply be handed out? Others want to know how reasonable the demand actually is.
The good news is that the government has announced the formation of a new wage board. However, there is a tendency to look for government conspiracies in everything, whether right or wrong. This time has been no exception.
The minimum wage was set at Tk 12,500 in December 2023. Since then, the cost of living has risen significantly due to war, inflation, gas shortages and other factors. According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, inflation stood at 8.34 per cent in September 2026.
The wage growth rate was 8.05 per cent in August. In this way, inflation has consistently outpaced wage growth for nearly four and a half years since February 2022. In other words, the real income of working people has declined every month for the past four and a half years.
If we use minimum fairness as the benchmark, the worker’s wage should be at least Tk 17,500 simply to maintain the previous level of real income—that is, to adjust for inflation. Second, to keep the shortfall from exceeding the previous Tk 3,000, the wage would need to be Tk 18,000.
Expenses have increased by 16.7 per cent, while wages have risen by 6.7 per cent. For every Tk 1 increase in wages, expenses have gone up by Tk 3. Where will the additional money come from?
Drawing on my earlier research on garment workers, I recently set out to examine the situation on the ground and update my understanding of their circumstances. In the process, I gained a fairly clear picture of a garment worker’s monthly expenses. In January 2026, a family of four was living on the earnings of a single worker.
At an average of Tk 4,500 per person, the family needed Tk 18,000 to cover basic necessities—expenses that were essential for survival. There was no luxury, no new spending and certainly no savings. Including overtime, the worker earned a total of Tk 15,000. The remaining Tk 3,000 had to be borrowed; otherwise, the family had to survive on mashed potatoes and lentils for the last 10 to 15 days of the month.
My calculations show that by January 2027, the minimum amount needed for the family to survive will be Tk 21,000, based on an average of Tk 5,250 per person. The worker’s earnings, including the wage increase and overtime, will be no more than Tk 16,000.
That leaves a shortfall of Tk 5,000. The figures may vary slightly, but over the course of a year, the worker’s monthly debt will increase by an additional Tk 2,000 on top of the existing Tk 3,000.
Meanwhile, because of the depreciation of the taka, the real value of the worker’s Tk 16,000 income in January 2027, calculated at January 2026 prices, will be only Tk 13,714. In other words, although the wage has technically “increased” on paper, real income has fallen by nearly Tk 1,286, or 8.6 per cent.
If we use minimum fairness as the benchmark, the worker’s wage should be at least Tk 17,500 simply to maintain the previous level of real income—that is, to adjust for inflation. Second, to keep the shortfall from exceeding the previous Tk 3,000, the wage would need to be Tk 18,000.
This means that the government, or the owners through government mediation, must somehow provide an additional Tk 2,000 in assistance on top of the Tk 16,000 wage. Otherwise, how will the worker survive? Third, if there is a genuine willingness to eliminate the shortfall entirely, the worker must be paid at least Tk 21,000.
Note that the Tk 2,000 in assistance is not a bonus; it is the minimum condition for keeping the family in the same debt-ridden position as before. Otherwise, the family will slide from poverty into extreme poverty, struggling to afford even one or two meals a day.
British sociologist Seebohm Rowntree first demonstrated that a minimum wage could be measured against a budget covering a family’s basic needs. This tradition gave rise to Richard and Martha Anker’s “living wage” methodology, which is now an internationally accepted and widely recognised standard.
According to the Global Living Wage Coalition’s 2025 estimates, the living wage for a worker in Dhaka, supporting a family of four in which an average of 1.58 members earn an income, is Tk 30,459 per month. The workers’ demand for Tk 30,000 almost exactly matches the figure in this international research.
In his book Poverty and Famines, Amartya Sen showed that the Bengal famine of 1943 was not caused by a shortage of food. It happened because people’s “entitlements” collapsed: the amount of rice they could buy with their wages suddenly fell.
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According to the ILO’s Minimum Wage Fixing Convention, 1970 (No. 131), the needs of workers and their families, as well as the cost of living, must be taken into account when setting minimum wages. Automatically adjusting wages in line with the cost of living is an established practice in many countries.
In his book Poverty and Famines, Amartya Sen showed that the Bengal famine of 1943 was not caused by a shortage of food. It happened because people’s “entitlements” collapsed: the amount of rice they could buy with their wages suddenly fell.
Rice was available in the market, but workers could no longer afford it with their wages. A garment worker’s entitlement is their wage. When the ratio between wages and the price of rice declines, deprivation enters the household even when the markets are full.
Economics also offers an answer to the concern that “factories will not be able to operate if wages are raised too much”. The “efficiency wage” theory developed by economists George Akerlof, Carl Shapiro and Joseph Stiglitz holds that better wages increase workers’ productivity, reduce employee turnover and save on training costs.
Economists David Card and Alan Krueger showed in New Jersey, in the United States, that raising the minimum wage did not reduce employment. Card received the Nobel Prize in 2021 for research in this field.
The government and factory owners have one question: who will pay for this?
The responsibility does not rest with factory owners alone; all three parties have a role. International buyer brands have kept garment prices under control for years. It is the responsibility of the government and factory owners to persuade them to ensure that workers’ wage costs are separately protected in the purchase price. Factory owners must also allocate a fair share of their profits to wages.
The state, meanwhile, must arrange to cover part of the shortfall through rationing, subsidised essential goods, housing and transport assistance. Amartya Sen and Jean Drèze have called this “public action”. When the market cannot keep people alive, the state must take responsibility.
The concerns of factory owners are also valid. There are shortages of gas and electricity. Tensions in the Middle East have made the fuel market uncertain. Buyers do not want to raise prices. Competition with Vietnam and Cambodia is intense. If wages are suddenly doubled, smaller factories may shut down, putting workers at risk of losing their jobs and suffering further hardship.
But if one reality is emphasised while another is ignored, disaster is inevitable. Real incomes have declined for four and a half consecutive years. The living wage under international standards is Tk 30,459, while the minimum wage has remained stuck at Tk 12,500 for nearly three years.
Workers taking to the streets are therefore not demanding extravagant benefits; they are seeking the minimum assurance needed to survive. Understanding this with empathy will point the way to a solution.
Of the country’s export earnings of USD 48 billion in fiscal year 2025–26, USD 38 billion, or approximately 80.6 per cent, came from the garment sector. Bangladesh is the world’s second-largest garment exporter after China.
The workforce taking to the streets is the very force behind the dollars needed for imports, foreign exchange reserves and the exchange rate. It is economically flawed and unjust to expect the families of those who generate 80 per cent of the country’s export earnings to survive on debt.
*Helal Mohiuddin is a faculty member in Liberal Arts at Mayville State University, North Dakota, USA.
*The views expressed are the author’s own.