Over the years, neo-liberal policies have seen a steady erosion of the concept of minimum wage and there has been a steady reduction of the wage to increase profitability under the name of competitiveness. While salaries and remunerations for executives have reached record limits, workers find themselves facing pay cuts and even retrenchment. Accordingly, the income gap between those belonging to the low wage group and the rest of population is increasing. Even in 20 most industrialized countries, over 10% of population live below a poverty line (less than 50% of median income)

Though studies show that a higher minimum wage is associated with a low national level of poverty, in reality, minimum wage is far from covering even the basic living cost of workers. For instance, the monthly minimum wage in Bangladesh is 930 Taka (approx. US$15) for garment workers but the cost of food for o­ne person per month is a minimum of 1,000 Taka. In Korea, the minimum wage covers just 26.8% of the living cost of 3-member family.