Why are wages in Taiwan so low? With Roy Ngerng

The Strait Up Podcast

Today I bring you another episode focusing on what is, on its face at least, a domestic issue in Taiwan, but I bring it to you with a comparative international perspective. That issue is Taiwan’s minimum wage, and why is it so low compared to other developed countries?

My guest today is Roy Ngerng, a researcher and writer who has worked on issues such as the minimum wage for many years. Roy is from Singapore and currently resides in Taiwan where he writes for The New Lens. Roy’s work as an activist and writer in Singapore actually got him into a bit of hot water over there, which you will hear about in the interview. But the focus of the interview is on wages in Taiwan, especially the minimum wage.

This is the first episode which will be released along with video on YouTube podcasts. So hello to any new viewers and listeners who are looking at this in the new format, and hello to my old-time audio-only listeners as well. For those of you who are interested in watching on video, I have included the link here. Feel free to reach out to me with any comments or suggestions as I try to move into the world of YouTube.

My goal in my conversation with Roy was to try and answer a question that many people in Taiwan have, which is, why are the wages in Taiwan so low? Most people in Taiwan have a pretty good quality of life, but the anomaly of why its wages have stagnated compared to its economic growth, especially when compared to its other East Asian neighbors with similar economic and social factors, is a question worth digging into. The issue of the minimum wage has also made its way into the debate among the candidates for Taiwan’s 2024 presidential election, which is only a few months away now. As you’ll hear in the interview, I was hoping to try and get at the specific factors about Taiwan’s economy that make its low wages so unique among highly developed countries. Roy certainly provides a lot of insight, data, and perspectives on what factors may be playing a role in this issue.

In this interview, we discuss Roy’s troubles as an activist in Singapore, how Taiwan’s minimum wage compares to that of other developed countries, how the cost of housing and food in Taiwan has far outpaced wages, how wages and migrant labor play into Taiwan’s domestic politics, and many other topics.

For those of you watching on YouTube, just a quick note, all the graphs and charts you see in this video come from Roy’s articles for the News Lens, and I’ve provided a link to his work there in the comments if you are interested.