A Reuters story from yesterday: Analysis: Thailand risks growing old before it gets rich:
Earning $6 a day from her food stall outside her home next to a railway track, Lumyai Rungruang is sceptical of news that Thailand’s wages are rising. The 54-year-old is too busy contending with spiralling inflation.
Coconut juice has doubled in price. Egg prices are up 50 percent at 90 baht ($2.95) a dozen. Doubtful her income can keep pace, she bristles when pressed about her future.
“I expect to work the rest of my life,” the mother of five said from her makeshift stall with its corrugated iron roof and bamboo stools, where she sells rice porridge and noodles.
For the past decade, Thailand’s minimum wage has trailed inflation, creating one of the widest gaps between rich and poor in Asia according to the World Bank, and fuelling working-class frustrations that erupted into violent street protests last year.
But Thai wages are creeping up, supported by an average 6.4 percent minimum-wage increase this year, rising agricultural prices that have helped farmers, a shortage of skilled workers and a planned increase in civil-servant salaries from April.
While higher incomes could boost Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s chances at polls this year and prod consumer spending, they raise questions over whether Thailand’s economy, Southeast Asia’s second biggest, can keep its cost advantage over Asian rivals — from China to Malaysia and India.
They also highlight another troubling question facing the Thai government and millions of workers like Lumyai: will Thailand grow old before it grows rich, as its population of 67 million people ages at one of the fastest rates in Asia?
(Emphasis mine.)