There was a time in Pakistan when a salary meant stability. It meant a predictable month, manageable grocery runs, and a household budget that-while tight-could still breathe. Today, a salary has become something else entirely: a survival ticket that expires before the month ends. Millions of working Pakistanis are not living paycheck to paycheck anymore-they are living bill to bill, and many months, even that is optimistic.
This is not merely a story of inflation. It is a story of the collapse of purchasing power, the quiet murder of dignity, and the slow conversion of the salaried class into the “new poor.” A country that used to respect the employed is now punishing them for being formal, traceable, and taxable. And the tragedy is that while governments celebrate macroeconomic “stabilisation,” households experience microeconomic suffocation.
Pakistan’s own official narrative often tries to comfort citizens by pointing out that inflation has come down. Yes, CPI inflation has eased compared to the extreme spikes of 2022-23 and early 2024. But this argument is misleading in a very human way. Slowing inflation does not mean prices return to old levels-it simply means prices are rising more slowly. A family that suffered a grocery bill doubling over two years does not feel relief if it rises “only” 8% this year. They feel trapped. In fact, evidence increasingly shows that real household welfare has deteriorated. A recent discussion of household survey findings highlighted that, despite rising nominal incomes, real per capita household income in Pakistan fell by 2024-25 when adjusted for inflation, with CPI cumulatively rising sharply since 2018-19. In plain language: Pakistanis are earning more in rupees, but buying less in life. Let us talk about that salaried life as it actually exists. A typical family budget in an urban centre is now a warzone: rent, electricity, gas, school fees, transport, groceries, and medicine. Salaries, meanwhile, are not structured like these bills. Salaries do not “adjust monthly.” Salaries do not contain fuel price clauses. Salaries do not follow utility surcharges. Salaries-especially in the middle tier-stay frozen in corporate and government structures that behave like Pakistan is still in 2018. Even where wages rise, they often rise too slowly and too unevenly. Pakistan’s Labour Force Survey figures reported that average monthly wages rose from around Rs24,028 in 2020-21 to about Rs39,042 in 2024-25-an increase that looks impressive on paper, until you remember what the rupee lost and what inflation did to daily life during those years. This is exactly the illusion Pakistan sells to itself: numbers improve, lives collapse.
Now add the cruel truth: average wage data does not represent the median Pakistani worker. It includes higher-paid formal segments and excludes the true instability of informal earnings. Most Pakistanis do not even have stable contracts. But those who do-the ones we call “middle class”-are still being destroyed slowly.
Pakistan’s own official narrative often tries to comfort citizens by pointing out that inflation has come down.
The salary trap begins with a single ugly reality: bills have become unreasonably large relative to income. It is not uncommon now for electricity alone to swallow a shocking share of monthly income. In a functioning economy, utilities are a predictable expenditure. In Pakistan, utilities are a psychological assault. Tariffs have seen repeated adjustments in recent years, and while some reductions were announced at different points, the volatility itself is damaging because it makes monthly budgeting impossible.
Even if tariffs fluctuate, the burden remains structural: taxes, surcharges, quarterly adjustments, fuel charges, and the eternal sin of circular debt being passed down to the consumer like a generational curse.
Then comes rent-the silent killer. Pakistan has turned housing into a commodity for the elite and a punishment for the worker. Rent is rising because construction costs have risen, land is treated like an investment chip rather than a social need, and the supply of affordable housing is embarrassingly inadequate. A salaried person cannot “invest in property,” yet they carry the cost of the property bubble through rent. It is the perfect economic cruelty: those who cannot buy are forced to fund those who can.
In major cities, rent is now the largest line item after food-or sometimes even larger. And landlords often demand advance payments because they, too, do not trust the economy. When a salary earner gives two months advance plus security, that is not renting-that is financing someone else’s asset at zero interest. But the employed have no bargaining power, because they cannot afford to relocate constantly. Then comes education-another middle-class tragedy. Pakistan loudly repeats that education is the solution. But Pakistan is also making education unaffordable. Every year, school fees rise. Books get more expensive. Transport becomes a luxury. Even the so-called “reasonable schools” have turned into corporate-style billing machines: annual charges, admission charges, lab charges, activity charges, security charges-charges for everything except common sense.
Now add petrol and transport.
Pakistan is not a country where commuting is optional. People travel because jobs are not located near housing. Families survive through multiple incomes and side gigs, meaning the household is constantly moving. Petrol price changes are not just about fuel; they are inflation multipliers. One petrol hike quietly raises the price of vegetables, milk, transport, services, even the chai you drink at a roadside dhaba. The working class pays twice: once at the pump, and again at the market.
And if you think the pressure ends there, enter healthcare. In Pakistan, a single medical emergency can destroy years of savings. Medicines are mostly purchased out of pocket. Tests are expensive. Private hospitals behave like profit centres. Public hospitals are overcrowded and under-resourced. The salaried class, therefore, pays taxes and still pays privately-meaning they are charged twice for healthcare: once through the state and once through reality.
So what happens to the salary earner?
They do what humans do when cornered: they cut. They compromise. They sacrifice.
They downgrade food quality. They remove meat. They remove fruit. They stretch milk. They move from branded items to unbranded items, not because they prefer it, but because dignity has become too expensive. They delay doctor visits. They delay repairs. They delay replacing broken appliances. They delay family gatherings. They delay having children. They delay life.
This is not an emotional exaggeration. This is economics. When real income falls, consumption patterns shift downward. When that shift becomes widespread, it becomes national decline: malnutrition increases quietly, education suffers quietly, and productivity collapses quietly.
And while this happens, Pakistan continues to tax the same people. The salary class is the easiest prey because it cannot hide. It cannot under-report. It cannot vanish into cash. In Pakistan, the “documented citizen” is punished. The undocumented elite is treated like a victim of reform. This is why Pakistan’s salaried class is angry-not just poor. Because it feels cheated. It feels like playing a game where rules apply only to the honest.
A shopkeeper can understate income. A cash-based professional can understate income. A big trader can negotiate. But the salaried cannot. Their income is traceable. Their tax is deducted. Their bank account is visible. Their purchases are documented. Their survival is audited.
Pakistan has created a cruel equation:
The more formal you are, the more you bleed. The results are now visible everywhere. Consumer spending has slowed. People are delaying weddings. Families are avoiding hospital visits. Young graduates are not searching for careers-they are searching for exits. Brain drain is not a fashionable term anymore; it is a household strategy.
So what should be done?
First, Pakistan must accept that the salaried class is not an enemy. It is the backbone. It funds the economy quietly. It sustains services. It sustains education. It sustains domestic demand. If you crush it, the economy does not survive-because the consumption engine dies.
Second, the government must revisit the structure of wage growth in both public and private sectors. Salary increments cannot remain an afterthought. In a country where utility bills and school fees rise every year, wage structures must be indexed-at least partially-to cost-of-living realities. Third, relief should shift from slogans to targeting. Relief should prioritise essential expenditures that crush households: electricity slabs for lower and middle tiers, education costs, basic healthcare coverage, and public transport investment.
Fourth, Pakistan must stop relying on indirect taxation as the easiest solution. A country that taxes consumption heavily will always punish the poor and middle class. Pakistan needs to tax wealth, property speculation, luxury consumption, and high-income informality more effectively-not just salaried citizens.
Fifth, the most powerful long-term reform is also the simplest: create jobs and productivity. A society with weak manufacturing, weak exports, and low value-added cannot pay living wages. Salaries remain low because productivity remains low. Pakistan cannot become a high-cost survival economy without becoming a high-output production economy. And finally, the narrative must change. Because the biggest injustice is not economic. It is psychological. The salary earner in Pakistan is exhausted-not because they are lazy, but because they are constantly doing math. Every day, every week, every month. Constant calculations. Constant fear. Constant compromise. If Pakistan wants stability, it must stop measuring recovery through charts and start measuring it through the only real indicator that matters: whether a working person can complete a month without humiliation. That, and only that, is what economic recovery truly means.
The writer is a financial expert and can be reached at jawadsaleem.1982@ gmail.com. He tweets @JawadSaleem1982