Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
cost of living crisislatest news & developments
Food prices jumped by 50% from September 2020 to September 2024 (Dwayne Senior/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Food prices skyrocketed by 50% from 2020 to 2024

Low-income households continue struggling to feed themselves, the Essential Food Monitoring Report stated

Since it became clear that the country had moved past the worst of the cost-of-living crisis, the question has been, “When will things get better?”   (Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

A ‘resilient’ economy still feels the pinch

The government should stand between us and inflation’s constant battering

New legislation seeks to close regulatory gaps to protect consumers and promote a competitive digital finance system. Photo: Nadine Hutton/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Inflation: Youth use credit to supplement salaries

A report has found that young people have taken on more credit in the first quarter of 2023 compared with last year

In a five-year review of take-home pay, BankservAfrica found that the average salary has not kept pace with inflation. (Illustration: Getty Images)

SA salaries stagnate amid chronic economic underperformance

In a five-year review of take-home pay, BankservAfrica found that the average salary has not kept pace with inflation

Yola Minnaar spends most hours of her day thinking about whether people in her neighbourhood have had something to eat. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)

Rising food prices in South Africa: A struggle for daily survival

The shelves in grocery stores have become more forbidding since the pandemic, but economists believe that there is some hope on the horizon

Nehawu members protest outside George Tabor Technical College in Soweto on 8 March 2023. (Fani Mahuntsi/ Gallo Images)

Little fires everywhere as SA comes to terms with economic decline

As the deteriorating economic conditions threaten to ignite another bout of social upheaval, we should consider our options for a co-ordinated blaze

Photo: Michele Spatari / AFP

Public sector wage fight: How long will the smoke and mirrors last?

The government has tried to exploit negative sentiment towards public sector workers, but siding with the employer may be even more difficult

Saldanha Bay, West Coast, South Africa, Railway trucks carrying iron ore from Sishen to Saldanha Bay terminal on the West Coast of South Africa. (Photo by: Peter Titmuss/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Strike sets Transnet back — again

The industrial action is the latest in a series of economy-hitting upsets for the state logistics company

People entering the abandoned Presidential Secretariat at Galle Face in Colombo, Sri Lanka on July 10, 2022.(Photo by M.A.Pushpa Kumara/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

‘Tunisia Days’ ahead as inflation exerts political pressure

With high prices continuing to bear down on consumers the world over, leaders who fail to bring inflation to heel could face a reckoning