{"id":2805,"date":"2025-06-12T10:58:33","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T05:58:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/?p=2805"},"modified":"2025-06-12T09:35:02","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T04:35:02","slug":"govt-freezes-minimum-wage-amid-budget-announcements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2day.pk\/en\/2025\/06\/12\/govt-freezes-minimum-wage-amid-budget-announcements","title":{"rendered":"Govt Freezes Minimum Wage Amid Budget Announcements"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"119\" data-end=\"454\"><strong>ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has confirmed that the government will not raise the minimum wage in the new fiscal budget for 2025\u201326.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"119\" data-end=\"454\">Speaking at a post-budget press conference, the minister said, \u201cThe minimum wage will remain at its current level,\u201d indicating no revision despite ongoing inflationary pressures.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"456\" data-end=\"915\"><strong data-start=\"456\" data-end=\"495\">Justification and Political Context<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"456\" data-end=\"915\">Aurangzeb defended the decision by urging critics to consider the broader context of economic constraints and inflation.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"456\" data-end=\"915\">He responded to criticism over government salary hikes by highlighting disparities between different categories of public servants.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"456\" data-end=\"915\">He also pointed out that top officials\u2014such as the Senate chairman, National Assembly speaker, and their deputies\u2014had already received substantial pay raises.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"917\" data-end=\"1451\"><strong data-start=\"917\" data-end=\"959\">Historical Perspective and Wage Trends<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"917\" data-end=\"1451\">Addressing concerns about disproportionate increases, the minister stated that the last salary hike for federal cabinet members occurred in 2016.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"917\" data-end=\"1451\">\u201cIf increments had been introduced annually, the current adjustments wouldn\u2019t appear abrupt,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"917\" data-end=\"1451\">The Finance Ministry last revised the minimum wage in 2024, increasing it from Rs32,000 to Rs37,000.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"917\" data-end=\"1451\">No additional change has been introduced in this year\u2019s budget, drawing concern from labor advocates amid rising living costs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has confirmed that the government will not raise the minimum wage in the new fiscal budget for 2025\u201326. Speaking at a post-budget press conference, the minister said, \u201cThe minimum wage will remain at its current level,\u201d indicating no revision despite ongoing inflationary pressures. Justification and Political Context Aurangzeb defended the &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1350,1289,1414],"class_list":["post-2805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news","tag-budget2025","tag-inflation","tag-minimumwage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/2day.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/2day.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/2day.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2day.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2day.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/2day.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2806,"href":"https:\/\/2day.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2805\/revisions\/2806"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2day.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/2day.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2day.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2day.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}