By Venuri Gangodawila
Few days ago, our family was having a light discussion about the current situation of the country. (well, this I guess is contemporarily, the most discussed topic in almost every household) and it was when my father brought a fact about the title of the article, which was considering the people who live in the lower strata of the income cycle of a country. His point was that if a country like Sri Lanka needs to achieve its ever “chewed on” concept called “development”, the middle layer of the economy; which contains the people with a middle income level should be empowered.
What’s with the ‘middle income’ people?
As we know, any country has five main layers of society which is categorized according to the level of income received by people in different social statuses, namely lower level class, middle lower class, middle class, middle upper class and finally the upper class on the top. (Even though the word ‘class’ is present, these are solely based on the grounds of income and not on the castes.) For the moment, I am going to consider mainly on the layers known as middle lower class and middle class, which in fact has not much variation and contains more than half of a country’s population.
Basically, middle class concept is structured around people earning a mediocre income which in truth is barely enough for their consumption and fulfillment of daily needs. These families typically contains a father who earns his living through a government job, a small family business like a grocery store or something of that sort, or it can be at least a tuk-driver job. It is true that they possess a way of earning but however the harsh truth is that they’re fallen into a situation where they cannot degrade to the condition of lowest level, which in simple terms, known as the poor, but also cannot afford to reach the next level too. So it is clear that they should have a way of help, a backup to continue their lifestyle fulfilling their needs.
This is the exact point where the idea of strengthening the economy of this social layer comes into light. Here, I guess that my father is fair enough to point out the strategy of taking the initial steps to develop our small island by empowering the “middle income man”.
How can the strategy be put into action?
Well, you’re correct dear reader. The government has a greater portion of responsibility here. This approach should have a certain flow; a flow of income. That means the people in the middle class should receive the benefits of development before it’s contacted with the rich. If we elaborate this fact further, in my opinion, whenever the purchasing powers of the middle class people are steady and stronger, an economy begins to flourish. It happens thus.
Imagine a person earning an average income, an increment of his salary encourages him to upgrade his life a bit more. For example, if he travelled to work by bus earlier, now he would travel by a trishaw. Then the trishaw driver would have money to purchase the needs for his vehicle and then the shop owner who sells those parts would have money to purchase more stuff that he need for his shop.
It’s a cycle where the above is only a small scenario. The government must identify this pattern. The priority must be given to matters like this because it’s the people in the ground level of the society that suffers most. Rich are getting richer daily while poor are getting poor day by day. This income gap should be made smaller. The terms like “income equality” should be made practical rather than limiting them to mere political discussions.
The major importance of putting the above strategy into practice is that it leads the country’s economy towards a much stronger development starting from the ground most to the utmost level. There should be a stable mechanism to uplift the economy of the lowest level man where there should be a smooth flow of income from the top level. Middle level man’s sources of livelihoods should be strengthened and hence it would increase their purchasing power as said above, as they would be encouraged for more comfortable living. And of course this would be much more politically beneficial for the government as it’s only through the valuable votes of these people, they could remain in power.
It’s high time
I thoroughly suppose it’s high time for the government to seriously look into the matters of these hard living citizens, of us, of most of the population living in Sri Lanka and undoubtedly about the people in very remote areas who live even without the chances of fulfilling their basic needs such as water, sanitation and education as life’s becoming more harder day by day.
First of all the pattern of thinking should be altered, new and pervasive ways of achieving the targets of development should be utilized prioritizing the ground level citizens such as providing more job opportunities in newer fields of occupations, developing the higher education system and most importantly, the focus should be shed for new inventions and innovations by Sri Lankans where there is a powerful ground for them to grow.
So why not start now?!
