— BGC:
minimum salary P520/D in Manila
minimum salary P350/D in provincial rate

• BGC cleaner earns P537 a day. She said up to 13k a month, presumably including overtime.
• BGC supermarket cashiers earn up to 20k a month
• BGC Security guards (7 days a week) or call center guys probably earn 25k including overtime. These figures were from a taxi driver, during my Nov 2019 trip.

I feel at the urban blue-collar level, the call-center job is roughly comparable to a SGD 2.5k job in terms of skill, hours, employer reputation,,,, . SGD2.5k / PHP 25k = 4 times.

I believe BGC cost level is slightly higher than countryside. A food court meal costs P150. A daily wage of P537 would be wiped out in 3 meals.

A Platinum Yoga lady told me Singapore cost of living is 2.5 to 3 times that of the Philippines, when I said I visited a Manila yoga studio.

These websites illustrate income and cost of living:

• https://www.schumachercargo.com/retire-philippines-100000/
• http://www.interaksyon.com/breaking-news/2018/05/28/127494/wealth-shaming-philippine-economy/

— Malaysia salary level .. Given the high concentration (10%?) of Malaysian nationals in my “community” (more than Filipinos), I find it useful to study Malaysia salaries. (For a similar reason I studied PRC and U.S. salaries.) I found very limited data online. https://www.timedoctor.com/blog/average-salary-in-malaysia/ is better than anecdotes. I think Malaysia salary level is 33% to 50% of Singapore level for many professions but some specialized professions are outliers.

In Johor Bahru, the consensus seems to be “You earn 3 times in Singapore, but costs are at least twice higher.” However, I think

• imported goods are not “twice” such as iPhone or China toys.
• residential/commercial rental is more than twice higher in Singapore
• transport is hard to compare because Singapore offers public transport as a viable alternative to car ownership
• Many “service” costs are driven by labor cost or shop rental