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Cape Town - Salary earners are better off despite higher personal income tax rates and higher medical insurance deductions, the BankservAfrica Disposable Salary Index (BDSI) showed on Wednesday.
According to the index the average take-home pay reached R13 000 in July for the first time, with salary earners seeing an average 8% rise in take-home pay over the last 12 months.
The share of people netting between R10 000 and R25 000 reached 36.6% for the first time since BankservAfrica started collecting take-home pay data. In total 46.1% of South Africans paid via the BankservAfrica payment system clear R10 000 or more, with the rest of employees earning less than R10 000 a month.
While these only detail electronic payments and exclude cash and intra bank payments, South African formal sector employees continue to beat inflation, according to BankservAfrica.
Despite the 5% inflation rate increase, the data indicates that salaries paid into bank accounts are 2.9% above inflation over the last year.
Formal sector employees who earn up to R100 000 per month have also seen their salaries rise across the board.
“These numbers show that a broad range of South African employees have seen positive real salary increases over the past 12 months, not just top management and professionals,” said Mike Schüssler, chief economist at Economists dotcoza.
The median salary rose by 6% since July 2014 to R9 751 per month - a percentage point higher than the inflation rate recorded for July 2015.
“The noted decline of 21% in the number of accounts which receive less than R4 000 per month has been phenomenal. More than 80% of South African employees in the formal sector are now earning take-home salaries that are above R4 000 per month,” said Dr Caroline Belrose, BankservAfrica head of fraud and data analytics.
Pensions soar above inflation
The BDSI also showed that average and median pension payments to private pensioners increased by 9.1% to R5 854 and R3 357 per month respectively in July - 3.9% higher than inflation, a clear indication that in the last year, private pensions have grown far faster than salaries.
“These figures show that pensioners have a much lower income, but that income is at least growing at a far better rate than before,” Schüssler said. “As pension payouts are typically based on previous years’ asset performance and adjusted annually, this trend should continue at least until the end of the year.”
BankservAfrica said it is likely that the above-inflation increases in both pensions and disposable salaries will be positive for consumer spending - particularly retail sales and domestic travel - as long as the petrol price remains relatively subdued.
