GNU Makes South Africans Richer Two Years in a Row

South African salaries rose for the second consecutive year, buoyed by an improving South African economy, according to research conducted by PayInc.

PayInc runs a payment system that helps South African banks settle payments. It was formerly known as Bankserv.

Its salary data comes from the tracking of net salaries paid into bank accounts across the country.

PayInc’s salary tracker, which follows the take-home pay of about 2.2 million people, shows that incomes in 2025 ended higher, in real terms (meaning that even taking into account inflation, salaries are still higher than they were), than a year earlier. By December 2025, the average monthly salary stood at R21 397. This was 0.5% higher in real terms than in 2024.

PayInc said that the upward trend in net salaries in 2025 continued a trend that had started in 2024.

PayInc quoted an independent economist, Elize Kruger, as saying, “The sustained recovery in salaries reflects the gradual improvement in economic activity and the economy’s resilience, despite multiple challenges.”

PayInc’s own data showed that salary increases had not kept up with inflation for most of this decade, so this trend reversal is very positive for South Africans. According to PayInc, 2024 had been the first year to show real salary growth since 2020.

The trend in real increases in salaries reflects how sentiment in, and to, South Africa has shifted in recent years.

Marius Roodt, deputy editor at The Common Sense, said that the formation of the Government of National Unity (GNU) in mid-2024 had played an important role in improving sentiment to the country, and this is reflected in the growth in take-home pay.

Roodt said: “The GNU is starting to have some real, tangible benefits but one of its benefits, which is more difficult to show, is the intangible benefits that it has brought. One of these are that people are starting to feel a bit more positive about the country, and this is reflected in this rise in salaries.”

He continued: “While some of the salary increase is based on real economic factors some of it can be because of improved sentiment to the country.”

He also said that small improvements in living standards could result in great positive shifts in sentiment.

“Sentiment among big South African corporates is also substantively better than it has been in years, which could bode well for the economy in the near-term,” Roodt said.