PSM’s Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj, in his piece about a budget with new ideas, wrote this: “A large proportion of B20 families work in precarious jobs as daily paid contract workers - washing dishes in restaurants, loading and unloading goods in factories and shops, in small farms, etc. 

"Another portion of B20 families relies on micro-businesses for their income.”

What he suggested was more government aid in the form of cash payments.

“Families whose current income is less than RM1,000 per month should be provided monthly cash transfers of RM500 to RM1,000 - a guaranteed minimum income - so that their basic needs can be met,” Jeyakumar wrote.

Any decent person should feel offended when they see the suggestion of a thousand ringgit a month to these families and see the reported RM25,000-plus monthly salary of MPs.

Honestly, just use the story of Mary as a guide.

Look at the amount of effort, work and indignities she has to go through to make ends meet on a daily basis. And, can you honestly argue, that fat cat MPs arguing about whether a government is legitimate or not (either side) and holding the budget to ransom (again both sides) are of any use to people living in the margins?

And that margin is getting bigger because of the pandemic.

Now, some MPs actually use their salaries to fund the social work they do in their communities. I divide these folks into three categories. 

The first who have no problem using their MP salaries because they have “other” revenue streams, more often than not, connected to the swamp of corruption that is Putrajaya.

The second, those who have other “legitimate” revenue streams and believe that using their MP salary is part and parcel of building a base, especially if one is cut off from the federal machinery for whatever political reason. 

Their other revenue streams make their lives comfortable and may be reflective of their voter base, but are estranged from the realities of larger diverse communities.

And the third type, those who do not have any form of revenue streams and if they do, it is not as much as the salary they are getting in their MP gig, but they sincerely believe that their salaries are meant to go back to the rakyat. These folks are far and few between.

I asked my motley group of friends what they thought an MP was earning and the highest number I got was five thousand ringgit which was the group's idea of a “high paying” job. All of them were shocked that our elected reps were getting RM25,000-plus a month.

A young man, fresh from performing his prayers, asked what they used their money for. Another chimed in wondering what it must feel like to have so much money in the bank. Whenever she goes to withdraw money from the ATM, she wonders if she has enough money or will the machine tell her that she does not have enough money to make a withdrawal.

Now, for some, this is true “poverty porn” but for me, this is what people are struggling within their daily lives. 

The pandemic has made it worse. For these people and many others, they have no idea why the government is stalling in the budget talks.

Indeed, most of them rely on some form of government aid. Some folks have access to religious and bumiputera funds, while others have to rely on other NGOs to help them out. 

To them, it is not a question if the government is legitimate or not, but whether they can make ends meet for the day and then look forward to doing the same the next day.

The DAP’s Liew Chin Tong has been consistent in his advocacy about job creation and the need for proactive measures to counteract the contractions that arise because of this pandemic.

Jeyakumar accurately points out, in his response to one of Liew's piece, about the need for government aid to these groups as a modified form of universal basic income: “While the creation of well-paying alternative jobs is a valid long-term goal, the primary objective currently should be to ensure that no family is left without an income sufficient to procure the essentials - food, shelter, basic utilities and healthcare - during this recessionary period.

“Other needs may be postponed, but the above four cannot be, and we have to, as a society, ensure that every family has the means to get the essentials. We cannot compromise on this.

“The best way of ensuring that no family is short on food is by implementing a modified universal basic income scheme or UBI, which would pay RM1,000 monthly to the households listed in the Bantuan Prihatin Negara (National Caring Assistance) scheme which meet the eligibility criteria.”

While this piece is not meant to argue for some form of universal basic income, it does highlight the fact that improving the lives of people hustling daily for rent and food money is in the hands of MPs who earn RM25,000-plus a month, which our taxes pay for.