When there were two months left until the end of 2025, in the formal sector of the Dominican labor market at least 243 thousand employees did not earn enough to acquire the goods and services of the first quintile of the family basketan amount that could be higher compared to the cost of the national basket.
Until last October, 242,778 people they had a salary range quotable in the Social Security Treasury (TSS) below 15,000 pesos, most of them (82,952 workers) aged between 31 and 55 years.
Of the aforementioned amount, 149,105 quotes they belonged to salaried between 10,000 and 15,000 pesos, while 83,877 earned between 5,000 and 10,000 pesos and the remaining 9,796 employees They had a salary of less than 5,000 pesos.
To the tenth month of last year, to acquire the products and services of the first quintile of the family basketa person needed 28,618.9 pesosreflecting a difference of 13,618.9 pesos between the salary of those employees and the cost of living, according to records of the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic (BCRD).
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Although the number of those who have quotable salaries ranging from less than 5,000 pesos to 15,000 pesos represented 8.8% of the total, when compared with the price of the national family basket, which as of October was 47,796.8 pesos, the number of workers who do not earn a salary that covers basic goods and services increases to 62.7%.
The TSS statistics show that 1,336,764 appear with wages quotable from between 15,000 and 30,000 pesosequivalent to 53.1% of the 2,517,492 quotes in October 2025, showing that 1,579,542.
At the end of the aforementioned month, the TSS registered 2,421,457 workers contributors and 2,517,492 quotesfor a difference of 96,035, which could be due to people who may have more than one formal job.
It was recently reported that the moonlighting –known as the number of workers who have more than one occupation – increased by 13.5% until last September, despite the fact that in 2025 the Government approved upward adjustmentsboth for the minimum wage and within the non-sectorized private sector, while private companies reported individual increases of up to 40% of their staff.
Higher salaries
On the opposite side, the amount of workers whose salaries exceed the 30,000 pesos It rose to 937,950 in October, representing 37.3% of the total. Within this amount, those who earned salaries among the 30,000 pesosbut less than 50,000, totalized 497,860.
Meanwhile, the rest of the 440,090 appear with quotable salaries greater than 50,000, representing 17.48% of the total contributions to the national social security scheme.
