Can a higher salary guarantee better quality of life?

 Need to think about it???? Better still the rumour flying around about the disposal RON95 from the market in near future might be true.... What happen when only RON97 will be in the market? Think about it? Higher income meaning higher income tax to pay for private sectors.... Hmmm! It sounds very true now.

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Thestar: Thursday December 2, 2010

Making a Point - By Jagdev Singh Sidhu

THE price of RON 97 petrol has increased by 15 sen to RM2.30 a litre but going by the reaction people have, it's not caused much of a ripple.
Adverse reactions from previous price hikes have dissipated but that must be due to the fact that most Malaysian road users are pumping RON 95 into their vehicles compared with RON 97 before. In short, the price hike would not affect most Malaysians.
But the prices of many goods are going up and that is something most of us have to get used to. Around the world, the prices of commodities are rising and so is the everyday cost of doing business.
Higher prices would hit wallets and that got me thinking. Is a higher salary a guarantee for better quality of life? We all hear how our parents were able to own larger homes than what most people could afford.
Drive around some of the more established neighbourhoods in Kuala Lumpur and it would not surprise that many of the owners of those homes were your typical middle income earners of yesteryear.
Back then homes were cheaper and real estate inflation, which really took off in the early 1990s, had not eaten into the pay packets many were earning.
Also back then, there were no mobile phone bills, healthcare charges were not astronomical as most Malaysians had more faith in the service and the ability of doctors in the public sector.
There was also no satellite TV subscription or Internet fees to pay for and also computers were a luxury item as opposed to a necessity these days. Being a high income nation might not mean most Malaysians will be living in the lap of luxury.
Going by the target of reaching US$15,000 per capita income by the end of 2020 to qualify as a high income nation works out to slightly less than RM4,000 a month based on exchange rates today.
As urbanisation will increase over the next decade, more Malaysians will be living in cities than currently and by today's standards, RM4,000 a month is not a lot to go by in a big city like Kuala Lumpur.
Given the ever-escalating price of goods and services and the hidden costs of modern living our parents did not have the bear with in the past, notwithstanding the higher income we should be earning in the future, one wonders whether we will actually see a higher quality of life than what our folks enjoyed during their time.