Newly-released data from the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) on formal sector employees’ wages has revealed that a significant 35 percent of workers earn less than RM2,000 a month.

The data also showed that the median wage does not increase much as one gets older, with those below 20 years old earning a median wage of RM1,500 a month and hitting the maximum at RM3,500 between ages 45 and 49 as of March 2023.

This means that not only do most Malaysians earn below RM2,000 a month, the salaries never go higher than...