Say yes to relief for J'can workers who earn above 1.5M affected by COVID-19

Say yes to relief for J'can workers who earn above 1.5M affected by COVID-19

While all workers laud the Government of Jamaica's efforts to help those in the formal and informal sectors, who have been laid-off and/ or are facing economic hardships due to the coronavirus- there is one group of workers who have been excluded from this relief - workers who earn over $1.5 M Jamaican per year. Many of us who earn above $1.5 M have been contributing members of the society for years and deserve to be assisted just as our counterparts who earn less. Our salaries, which range from $1.6 M to  $4.5 M may sound hefty to some, but the realities of modern day Jamaica means our salaries are effectively chicken feed -we live payday to payday. 

We owe student loans, pay mortgages and cover other bills - we are effectively Jamaica's middle class, a shrinking segment of society. Coronavirus does not discriminate, and neither should the Government of Jamaica. We, like any other segment of society, deserve to be helped by the GOJ as we have contributed to the state greatly, unlike those in the informal sector, which provisions have been made for, who go untaxed.

Persons in our tax bracket have been taxed heavily for our ambition but out of patriotism and love for our developing nation, we've held our heads down and continued to work and pay our dues in silence. We have paid Income Tax, NIS, NHT and Education Tax ( A tax we may never benefit from as most of us - at the rate things are going - may never have children, who benefit from this contribution). We've never complained and now many of us find ourselves out of a job and out of favour with the government, as we have become the forgotten group of workers - with no aid to benefit from. While we understand that the government faces its own challenges, some monies should be redistributed to us as well. We are not asking for more than what other groups have been allotted, we are just asking to be included. 

We are therefore calling on the Government of Jamaica to:

• Assist workers who earn above $1.5M and under $4.5M  per annum.
• Recognize that most of us have no additional source of income and while some employers have given us one month's worth of pay, that is insufficient to sustain us until life returns to the "new normal". 
• Implement other creative initiatives that can help us get back to work sooner. 

Details