Nigeria’s new survival wage: Why many working families earn less than it takes to stay afloat
By the third week of every month, Ibrahim Olarinrin's money is already gone. The 38-year-old Lagos resident brings home N300,000 a month, and somehow it still is not enough to carry his family through to payday.
His story is far from unusual. Across Nigeria, working people with steady salaries are finding that their income simply does not stretch to cover the basics: rent, food, school fees, transportation. Earning a wage is no longer the same as earning enough to live on.
The gap between what families need and what they actually take home has become one of the quietest crises in the country right now. It does not make headlines the way exchange rates or fuel prices do, but it shows up every single day in kitchens and school gates and market stalls.
What does it actually cost to keep a Nigerian family afloat in 2025? That is the question more and more households are being forced to answer, month after difficult month.
Originally published by BusinessDay.