Sibusiso Mboto hears the same story every day. As an advocate with the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group, he speaks to families across income levels, and the picture they describe is consistent: money runs out before the month does.
Reserve Bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago has now put an official stamp on what those families already feel. Living standards in South Africa have slipped below where they were in the early 2010s. The observation is not abstract. It lands in kitchens, in bank accounts, and in the choices families make about what they can and cannot afford.
Additional reference context is available at https://www.ewn.co.za/south-africans-have-worse-living-standards-now-than-during-early-2010s-lesetja-kganyago/.
The cost of living has climbed sharply since around 2010. Wages have not followed. Food, electricity and transport consume a growing share of monthly income, leaving households with little cushion when something unexpected comes up.
Mboto spoke to CapeTalk about the depth of that strain. Middle-income earners, a group that once felt relatively secure, are now reporting that they cannot meet their mortgage obligations, manage existing debts, and still have money left at month’s end. “When your middle-income group is complaining that they’re battling to make ends meet, they can’t meet their home loan repayments, they can’t deal with other loans, and they’re barely making it to the end of the month, it gives you a reflection of how dire the situation is,” he said.
For lower-income households, the choices are even harder.
Mboto recalled a conversation with a friend about their parents’ generation, people who earned modest salaries but still managed to buy homes and own cars like a Ford Cortina. That generation did not face the same daily calculation about survival that many families confront today. The economic mobility that once seemed within reach for ordinary workers has narrowed considerably.
What that narrowing looks like in practice: families buy maize meal and flour in bulk, not out of preference, but because staples that last a month are the only way to stretch a limited budget. Every purchase is weighed against payday. The items in the trolley are chosen to survive on, not to eat well.
Meanwhile, middle-income families are postponing savings, cutting non-essential spending and managing debt with increasing care. The erosion is quieter at that level, but it is real. Postponed plans, deferred repairs, a holiday that does not happen.
The testimony from advocates like Mboto and the formal assessment from Kganyago converge on the same point: South Africans are materially worse off than they were in the early years of the last decade. Inflation and stagnant wage growth have combined to reduce real purchasing power across the country. What began as a gradual squeeze has become, for millions of households, an acute and daily crisis.
The open question is whether wages can begin to close that gap, or whether the distance between what things cost and what people earn will continue to widen.