A recent poll by our good friends at MarketWatch shows how Domestic Workers are wallowing in misery and poverty as they are earning well below the poverty datum line. According to the poll, most people said that the majority of domestic workers (62.%) are earning between $500-800 RTGS.

We ran a poll on Monday to see how much domestic workers were being paid. We think these brackets didn't correctly represent what is going on our there so will be starting another one today #MarketWatchZW pic.twitter.com/vzp8tChY0g

— Market Watch Zimbabwe (@MarketWatchZW) January 29, 2020

This treks without own findings and data. In fact, some younger domestic workers who should be in school earn even less than this. Meanwhile, according to ZIMSTAT the poverty datum line stood at $3 160 late last year. With prices rising on a daily basis it can only be higher. This means most workers earn less than a quarter of what they need to survive.

The picture in USD

The dire nature of the situation is easily revealed when these amounts are translated in USD. If we are to translate the poll results into USD

The majority of workers are earning between US$20-$US32
18% earn between US$32-US$44
8% earn US$44-US$56

All these amounts are woefully inadequate and won’t even cover basics.

A cascading effect

Civil servants represent the largest group of employed people in Zimbabwe. A large percentage of the population makes its money from off these civil servants. With most civil servants struggling it has meant everyone else is now struggling.