How Many Ghanaians Get By

Everywhere you look in Ghana people are selling things. Hawkers. Foodstuffs. Market sellers. It’s a hard working, industrious society. There is no government safety net. No unemployment/disability insurance. No mandated social security. People here know that if you don’t work, you don’t eat. But just the will to work doesn’t mean there’s money to be made.

Millions of Ghanaians, and refugees from nearby countries who have fled for one reason or another to the region’s most stable democracy, struggle to scrape together enough to sustain themselves.

Minimum wage here is just over 3 Ghana Cedi. That’s about $2.50. And that’s per DAY. And huge numbers of people here are not employed, so that minimum wage doesn’t apply to them. Some street hawkers, often sturdy teenage girls, tote bowls full of chilled plastic bags of water atop their head, selling each ‘sachet’ for 5 pesewa, clearing a profit of 1-2 pesewa per transaction (100 pesewa = 1 cedi).

So, if these girls manage to sell 50 sachets a day they earn 1 cedi. What can that buy? The good folks, Gail and Godwin, over at g-lish have assembled some pictures to show you. Please click over an take a look!