This archive report was first published on 25 November 2019.
Published on November 25, 2019, a report by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) has shed light on the stark reality of income inequality in Kenya. The data, set to be released next week, shows that nearly half of the total employed workers in the country earn below Ksh30,000 ($300) per month.
According to the KNBS data, the number of salaried workers taking home below Ksh30,000 ($300) has grown by 154,945 or 14 percent to 1,279,982. This equals 46.3 percent of the total 2,765,159 salaried workers captured in the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) database as at the end of December last year.
The majority (69 percent) of the workers taking home below Ksh30,000 ($300) work in the private sector, indicating that government jobs pay higher salaries. Dominant sectors of the economy such as education and agriculture, which account for 34.2 percent of the country's gross domestic product, transport (8 percent), manufacturing (7.7 percent), and real estate (7 percent), paid the least.
The education sector had the highest number of below Ksh30,000 ($300) earners at 274,152, being 21.4 percent of the workers in this range of salaries. This is despite the sector also accounting for the largest share of those earning above Ksh100,000 ($1,000) at 22 percent or 17,808 individuals, representing lecturers, administrators, and high school teachers, among others.
The income of Ksh30,000 ($300) is hard to manage, especially for those living in urban areas such as Nairobi where nearly everything requires money. The KNBS report on the well-being of Kenyans released last year showed expenditure per month per adult on food and none-food items averages Ksh7,811 ($78.11) nationally. However, residents of Nairobi incur on average Ksh4,239 ($42.39) per month on food and a further Ksh8,158 ($81.58) on non-food items, gobbled up at least 48 percent of the Ksh30,000 ($300) gross earning.
