I just watched Talk of the Nation and came across a statistic that genuinely shocked me. According to the Namibia Statistics Agency's 2023 Population and Housing Census Labour Force Report, published in January 2025: Only 2.6% of employed Namibians earn more than N$40,000 per month. 55.4% earn N$5,000 or less per month. 17.9% earn N$1,000 or less per month. Just 1.6% earn more than N$50,000 per month. Let that sink in. Out of approximately 547,000 employed people, only around 14,325 reported earning above N$40,000 gross per month. And we're talking about employed people here, not the unemployed or the entire population! I knew Namibia had serious unemployment, poverty and inequality problems, but I genuinely didn't realise just how small our higher-income population is. It raises some uncomfortable questions. How on earth are ordinary Namibians supposed to afford houses costing N$2 million to N$3 million? How are people expected to build wealth, save for retirement, raise families and maintain a reasonable standard of living on these salaries? Even someone earing N$40000 is barely able to afford a car loan, morgage in a decent area, food, rates and put their children through school. N$40,000 gross per month is certainly a good salary, but should earning that amount really place someone among the top 2.6% of employed people in an entire country? We have uranium, diamonds, gold, fisheries, tourism and enormous natural-resource potential. Yet the income statistics paint a very different picture of the economic reality experienced by ordinary Namibians. Is our economy simply failing to create enough well-paying jobs? Is the problem low productivity, unequal distribution of wealth, or something fundamentally wrong with our economic structure? I would genuinely like to hear people's perspectives, especially economists and particularly from those working in different industries. Are we underestimating just how poor Namibia actually is, or is there more to these statistics than meets the eye? And weirdly Namibia doesn't look that broke from the outside compared to other African countries. I am just in complete shock over these statistics.   submitted by   /u/Prior_Scientist6890 [link]   [comments]