Budget 2026 and the squeezed middle: How to rebuild confidence without breaking the budget

IN OUR earlier commentary, Budget 2026: From B40 to B70, Redefining Malaysia's Middle Class, EMIR Research argued that Malaysia’s deepest fiscal challenge lies not merely in managing debt but in recognising the erosion of its true middle class.

The so-called M40 is no longer the secure, upwardly mobile core of society that official classifications suggest. Instead, it is a squeezed, stretched and anxious middle, caught between rising living costs, stagnant wages and thinning buffers of savings.