No country should leave behind her citizens in a rising economy. The Singapore Government started the Progressive Wage Model (PWM) in 2016 with the intention to raise the income of the low wages workers. This is a good job of the Singapore Government.
According to the recently announced PWM , the minimum pay for a same cleaner will hit $2,420 by 2028, nearly double the $1,236 he or she must at least earn now. If a service in question, at this instance, cleaning service is considered as essential, should the workers employed in such service be paid attractively? When the wages of these workers rise, who should pay for this rise? Service providers (the employers of these workers) or Service buyers (the consumers that require the service)? No employer (commercial entity) could continue to operate if they were required to bear repeated rises in cost. It is natural that few would be willing to dig into their own pockets to pay for rises in cost. But the fact remain that if you require a service, you need to pay for it.
With further increase in the starting pay under the PWM, workers whom used to shun these services may start to join and build them as their careers . Perhaps, by then the Progressive Wage Model(PWM) should be renamed as Progressive Career Model (PCM). Alternatives in hard and soft forms would also evolve , to counter against the rise in cost, which consumers find difficult to continue absorbing. We may possibly see more robots carrying out work which were once carried out by man.
Helping low-wage workers in S’pore climb the wage ladder https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/jobs/helping-low-wage-workers-in-spore-through-progressive-wage-model