Minimum wage
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The Two-Thousand-Ringgit Floor
The minimum wage goes from RM1,700 to RM2,000, the seventh time in thirteen years this floor has been raised — what happened elsewhere after floors were raised, why Anwar is raising it now, and why Akmal asks 'who will pay'
On 9 October 2026, in Budget 2027, Anwar announced that the minimum wage would rise from RM1,700 to RM2,000 from June 2027, with MSMEs whose annual revenue is below RM50 million exempt. This 'floor' has been raised steadily since RM900 in 2013. Using the 2025 median wage, our own calculation puts RM2,000 at about 68% of the median, higher than most country experiences in the literature. The experiences of the United Kingdom, Germany, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia and Brazil show that raising the floor does not necessarily destroy jobs, but how fast, how high and who complies produce very different outcomes. This piece also places this raise within Anwar's political calendar, and within the responses of UMNO Youth chief Akmal Saleh and others.