{"id":9073,"date":"2026-06-25T08:21:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T08:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/?p=9073"},"modified":"2026-06-25T08:21:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T08:21:29","slug":"real-take-home-pay-at-a-two-year-low","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/?p=9073","title":{"rendered":"Real take-home pay at a two-year low"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/iframe.iono.fm\/e\/1689374?layout=modern\" width=\"100%\" height=\"170\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN:<\/strong> I\u2019m chatting now to independent economist Elize Kruger around the PayInc Net Salary Index data results for May 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Elize, appreciate the early morning time. What we see is a slight increase, up to about R21\u00a0510 for May. It\u2019s up 0.2% from April; It\u2019s up 0.9% year on year. The problem is, as soon as we bring inflation into the picture, South African consumers are going backwards. We are poorer this year than we were a year ago.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ELIZE KRUGER: <\/strong>Good morning, Simon. Yes, indeed. Now, in real time terms we\u2019ve seen a drop of 2.8% in the month of May. And also for the first five months of the year it\u2019s already a drop of 1.7%. So it\u2019s definitely eating into the purchasing power of salary earners.<\/p>\n<p>And that is on top of other challenges like higher inflation generally and also the fact that we had an interest-rate increase. So there are lots of challenges still out there for the salary earner.<\/p>\n<p>Read:<br \/>Nedbank: Growth slows, inflation peaks and rates stay higher for longer<br \/>Should the Sarb hike rates and kill economic recovery?<br \/>Consumers under pressure: What\u2019s needed to boost confidence<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN:<\/strong> And to throw into the mix is the fuel price increase. It is tough, but maybe there\u2019s a bit of a glimmer \u2013 and let\u2019s get to that part, because as the fuel price is coming down that helps. The point is we are just not getting the increase.<\/p>\n<p>There are two parts to the consumer sort of wallet, and we might get some relief from the fuel, but we\u2019re not getting that relief in terms of income.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ELIZE KRUGER: <\/strong>Yes, indeed. In the short term I think we can get some good news at the pumps. Looking at the 1st of July adjustment, hopefully petrol will be down by between R2 and R2.50 and R3, and diesel almost R4 per litre.<\/p>\n<p>And if I look at this morning\u2019s oil price, now around $72\/barrel, I think we are in for definitely another cut in fuel prices in August. So some reversal, some U-turn from the prices that we have seen in on the fuel side.<\/p>\n<p>But unfortunately inflation has already moved in terms of levels.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>So even though we might see these declines in July\/August, inflation could come down towards 4% in that quarter.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>There is unfortunately a low base of calculation that will push headline inflation back towards about 4.7% in the fourth quarter. So average wise, it\u2019s going to be unlikely that salary earners are going to have increases above inflation in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Read:<br \/>SA consumer mood darkens as Iran war hits fuel prices<br \/>Global conflict darkens SA\u2019s economic outlook<br \/>Sasol hit by 20% drop but analysts flag buying opportunity<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN:<\/strong> And we of course already have the first rate hike. I imagine as a consumer there are certain things that we sort of can\u2019t avoid \u2013 utility, transport. These are areas where we need to be spending. But I\u2019m imagining it\u2019s sort of our discretionaries.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m thinking restaurants, I\u2019m thinking food and maybe beverages which are going to be particularly hard hit because those are the discretionary side of the wallet spend.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ELIZE KRUGER:<\/strong> Yes, indeed. We\u2019ve already seen signs of that in the first quarter\u2019s GDP data. The household spending composition showed that spending was mostly on essentials, and the discretionary spending came down quite a bit.<\/p>\n<p>That was even before we had the full impact of the Middle East unfold in the economy. So I think we\u2019re going to see more of that sort of luxury spending still under pressure in the second half of the year, and more of a focus on the essential spending.<\/p>\n<p>Read:<br \/>Why these are sobering times for alcohol companies<br \/>Incentives alone will not solve SA\u2019s household savings challenge<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN:<\/strong> You make a great point there. The war in Iran has certainly exacerbated circumstances, particularly around fuel. But my sense is that it was tough coming in. You mentioned up top that this has been a tough first five months for 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The war has made it worse. This isn\u2019t the only problem. It was tough out there before that even started.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ELIZE KRUGER: <\/strong>Yes, indeed. In a way, I would say surprisingly and disappointingly so, because we did start the year out with quite an optimistic economic view. Now the economic view has been sliced as a result of what happened in the Middle East and the impact on the South African economy.<\/p>\n<p>Read:<br \/>IMF impressed with SA inflation target and removal from grey list, but \u2026<br \/>Global rice glut brings relief for SA consumers<br \/>SA banks rally as JPMorgan upgrades on strong macro outlook<\/p>\n<p>But even though that has been the case, quarter one, for instance, has already been a disappointing outcome both on salaries and on household spending. So I think we\u2019ve had two good years, and it almost seems this year is a bit of a stabilisation year in terms of salaries.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>I take your point. We have had a couple of good years and maybe we are stabilising. We would like to be richer, but that\u2019s not always a straight line.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ll leave it there. Independent analyst Elize Kruger has been weighing in on the PayInc Net Salary Index for May 2026. Appreciate the early morning.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>#Real #takehome #pay #twoyear<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here. SIMON BROWN: I\u2019m chatting now to independent economist Elize Kruger around the PayInc Net Salary Index data results for May&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[525,62,11120,11121],"class_list":["post-9073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investing","tag-pay","tag-real","tag-takehome","tag-twoyear"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}