Minister calls for PAKW to guide household income assessment
The living-cost measure is not a wage benchmark and should be considered alongside pay and productivity data, the economy minister said.
Economy Minister Akmal Nasrullah Mohd Nasir has urged the government to use basic expenditure of decent living (PAKW) to judge whether household earnings meet living needs and to better target economic measures.
In a speech delivered in Putrajaya on Oct 20, he said PAKW estimates household spending needs for a decent living standard, accounting for where families live, their size and composition. It should not be treated as a minimum wage or a single pay rate applicable to every worker.
His deputy, Datuk Seri Mohd Shahar Abdullah, read the speech at the opening ceremony for National Statistics Day.
Akmal Nasrullah said combining PAKW with wage and productivity figures would help identify shortfalls between earnings and household needs. He also cited the Malaysia Salary and Wages Survey Report 2025, published in September, as a reference for examining pay differences across skills, occupations and sectors.
He said a higher wage floor was insufficient on its own. Policymakers also needed to assess wage compression, where pay differences narrow between new recruits and workers with greater skills or experience, while considering productivity and employers’ capacity.
He linked these assessments to labour reforms under the 13th Malaysia Plan, including better alignment between jobs and skills and ensuring workers’ earnings reflect productivity gains.
Akmal Nasrullah also cautioned that high-value investments would not necessarily generate higher incomes without local worker and supplier participation. He said investment figures should be assessed alongside labour and enterprise indicators, with policy success measured by improvements people experience.
