More needs to be done to address needs of working poor – 2026 Budget falls short

Feb 01, 2026 Letters

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Dear Editor,

In the 2025 elections, the PPP was playing defense to respond to criticisms there was more emphasis on roads and infrastructure than on human and people development. It was said, “we can’t eat roads.”

Nothing is wrong with infrastructure. Hospitals, schools, roads, bridges, airstrips, housing, education, etc. are all related to human development. It will be silly to see infrastructure and human development as mutually exclusive. We need both infrastructure and emphasis on addressing the high level of poverty in the society for almost half of our population. Fifty percent of our people are the “working poor.”

They work hard at a job yet they remain poor. Life for them is a daily grind. Dr. Cheddi Jagan, decades ago, referring to sugar workers’ plight said, “it is better to stay home and starve than to work and starve.” I remember the security guard on the West Coast of Demerara who told me she makes $2,800 a day and is not supplied with work uniforms by her employer. I told her, that daily pay cannot even buy a 3-piece KFC meal! Such low pay is typical of domestics, cleaners, people doing labourers work, retail and restaurant workers, and entry level workers in Government offices and private sector offices.

This group of working poor are catching daily hell to make ends meet, providing food, paying rents and utilities, buying clothes, sending children to school and having to find money for snacks and lunches. The 2026 budget has failed these people, unless the Government reveals some good plans and initiatives during the budget debate. How about a food card for pensioners, public assistance recipients, and workers earning below $100,000 per month? Don’t tell us nonsense that if you pay poor people more it will cause inflation, but when the contractor class makes multi-millions, it does not cause inflation. And please explain why the so-called fastest growing economy have the lowest currency in Caricom – lower than the tiny islands of the Eastern Caribbean!

Government propaganda is in overdrive to recruit folks to make short videos praising the budget as the best thing since sliced bread and the budget being poor-people focused. We simply cannot have government by propaganda. The budget has more corporate welfare, and “special interests” welfare than poor-people welfare. Our government must listen to the cries of the people. The historic elections of 2025 in which a fly-by-night party, whose leader is being accused of wrongdoing, captured the imagination of one out of every four voters, and should jolt the government to reality. These voters seem to be mostly from the class of the “working poor” being mocked as “scrape heads.” The Government must learn a lesson here, but it seems to not get it. The 2026 budget made no announcement of increases in the minimum wage. A new threshold of $140,000 for not paying taxes was announced but most of the working poor do not make $140,000 per month.

We have not heard any announcements of salary increases for government workers. We have not heard of any fixes to the problem of NIS denying benefits to workers because NIS contribution records are incomplete. The paltry increases to pensioners and those needing public assistance – below what was promised during the election campaign – shows the Government does not understand the reality of current poverty. What we have so far is much talk of trickle-down economics, and “macroeconomics.”

For poor people, removing VAT on local jewellery, fertilisers, agrochemicals, pesticides, machinery and equipment used by farmers and miners, while good things, mean nothing to their immediate needs for income relief. Government boasts of reversing APNU’s 220% increase in D&I charges and the 600% increase in land rental but this means nothing to the working poor. Removing corporate taxes on interest earned by banks on poultry sector or removing all taxes on agriculture and agro-processing mean nothing to people who can barely afford to buy expensive items such as meat, milk, cheese, and oil now.

The working poor judges the government by the single measure of how much their current low pay has gone up. Unless base pay goes up regularly, NIS benefits and pensions would be at a lower level at retirement. All these boasts of indirect macro-level benefits, while good things, do not resonate with the poor who need purchasing power and direct benefits now! The President has a compassionate heart and should listen less to the fat cats in the Government who are advising him to go slow on fixing poverty. To honour our Founder Dr. Jagan, the poor must be at the center of policies for reform. It is not too late to do that Mr. President! Don’t let the tears of the poor fall on our government! We do God’s will when we take the side of the poor.

Matthew 25:40 states: “And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

Sincerely,

Dr. Jerry Jailall

Civil Society Advocate

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• 2026 budget, Jerry Jailall, Letters, poor, roads and infrastructure, working

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