Youth Pulse: For fair pay

The right remuneration: Each day, thousands of Malaysians cross the border into Singapore for work. — The Star

BUDGET documents make for good reading if one has insomnia. Budget 2025 was no exception, when it arrived in my WhatsApp inbox in the form of a 138-page PDF file around mid-October.

Perhaps one of the most exciting announcements in Budget 2025 was the raising of the minimum wage from RM1,500 to RM1,700. What intrigued me most, however, was a clip that Human Resources Minister Steven Sim shared on his X (formerly Twitter) account in which he said, “When we say minimum wage, we don’t mean starting pay”.