By day, life is becoming hard for South Africans. The rising fuel costs are deepening this crisis.
New data from the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice & Dignity Group (PMBEJD) paints a stark picture of the growing pressure on households, with rising food and fuel costs deepening an affordability crisis that is hitting women and children particularly hard.
The organisation’s April 2026 Household Affordability Index found that the cost of its household food basket rose by 2.3% month-on-month to R5 452.09, an increase the PMBEJD said may be linked to rising fuel prices, filtering through the food system.
As a country heavily reliant on imported fuel and road transport, increases in diesel and petrol costs affect everything from farming and food processing to distribution and retail.
But the report argued that the crisis extends far beyond food inflation. The real concern is that many households simply do not have enough income left after paying for essential expenses such as transport and electricity to afford a nutritious diet.
For workers earning the national minimum wage, the picture is particularly severe.
A worker earning the maximum monthly minimum wage of R4594.96 would be left with only R1893.11 after paying average transport costs of R1 520 and electricity costs of R1 181.85.
By comparison, a basic nutritious food basket for a family of four costs R3 787.34.
Children are among the most vulnerable.
The PMBEJD estimates that the average monthly cost of feeding a child a basic nutritious diet reached R964.94 in April, while the child support grant stood at R580. The grant is therefore around 40% below the cost of a nutritious diet and 32% below the food poverty line.
The report also highlights the disproportionate burden carried by women, who are often responsible for managing household food budgets and making difficult choices when money runs short.
According to the PMBEJD, women frequently absorb economic shocks by reducing the quality of food purchased, taking on debt or sacrificing their own nutritional needs to ensure that children are fed.
The figures highlight the daily balancing act facing many of the country’s low-income families. After paying for transport, electricity and other essentials, there is often too little left for food, leaving households to make difficult decisions about what they buy, what they cut back on and how they stretch their already tight budgets.
An August 2025 cost of living report by the Competition Commission South Africa warned that rising prices for essentials such as food, fuel and electricity are placing increasing pressure on South African households, particularly low-income families.
The report noted that poorer households have consistently experienced higher inflation than wealthier households, making them especially vulnerable to economic shocks and rising living costs.
According to the commission, the country’s cost-of-living crisis reflects broader economic challenges, including persistent poverty, inequality and exposure to global economic volatility.
Rising prices, it said, have eroded household purchasing power, increased the risk of food insecurity and forced many families to make difficult trade-offs between basic necessities.
The report also highlighted the growing strain that transport, electricity and debt repayments place on household budgets. Citing affordability research, it said that the average worker spends more than 57% of monthly earnings on transport and electricity alone, leaving limited income for food and other essential expenses.
“Aggressive interest rate hikes have compounded the problem, adding considerable amounts to monthly repayments on home loans and other forms of credit. Given that wages have failed to keep pace with the rising costs, the strain on household budgets is a real concern,” the report said.
The commission argued that understanding the drivers of rising living costs will be critical if South Africa is to address growing financial insecurity and inequality.
Jacob Raborolo, a beggar on the streets of Johannesburg, said it has become increasingly difficult to get people to give them money, as most tell them to go and find a job.
“Most people will tell you to at least do something, which is why you see us washing windows at traffic lights. If you’re just begging with a plastic bag for people to throw their rubbish into, you won’t get anything. When it rains, it’s even more difficult because you can’t wash the windows.”
Raborolo understands that the high cost of living and rising petrol prices are affecting citizens and that not everyone can afford what they once could. “Money is scarce, my brother.”
Another beggar, Kabelo Kgalema, said they had moved beyond simply begging and were now at the point of having to plead for assistance, which is why he carries a sign reading “Very Hungry”.
Kgalema said he has also resorted to tactics such as not wearing shoes or kneeling at intersections in an effort to gain sympathy from motorists.
“You basically have to embarrass yourself and that’s the only time some people will feel sorry for you. Otherwise, they will tell you to go fly a kite. In most cases, white people are the ones who help us but with black people it’s very difficult to get anything. My target is about R70 an hour. But now it’s very difficult.”
He said motorists, particularly men, were increasingly asking for sexual favours in exchange for financial assistance.
“Some of them are even wearing wedding rings. You can tell that the person is married with a family and they will offer you a lot of money but it’s difficult to agree to those requests.”
Thandi Mudau, a taxi commuter from Pimville in Soweto, told the Mail & Guardian that with taxi fares increasing, she was spending nearly a third of her salary just getting to work, a situation she described as unsustainable. Mudau said that with rent and transport costs rising, it was becoming difficult to meet even basic needs.
“I’m working but I cannot save a single cent. After paying rent and taxi fare, which comes to about R3000 a month, I still have to buy food and electricity. Because I work in an office environment, I also have to buy clothes. You’re left with nothing. The question then becomes: why are we even working?”
Mandla Sithole, a petrol attendant in Diepkloof, said his salary had not increased in the past three years, making it increasingly difficult to even afford travelling to work. Sithole said one of the challenges of his job was that, unlike workers in some other sectors, petrol attendants could not work remotely.
“There’s no working from home here and it’s not like we get tips. We work 12-hour shifts, which means you can’t even take on a side hustle. You have to buy food, your salary isn’t going up but everything else is.
Domestic workers remain structurally trapped at the lowest end of the labour market, where rising living costs quickly become unmanageable, Amy Tekia, the co-founder of the Izwi Domestic Workers Alliance, says.
She said domestic and farmworkers were previously classified as ultra-low-wage earners, meaning most had little or no capacity to save.
“There’s no wiggle room,” she said. “When the cost of living goes up, particularly fuel — which affects transport and food prices — workers are often left having to make very difficult decisions about whether to pay rent or school fees, or spend money on groceries versus electricity.”
She said employers were also often under financial pressure, which limited their ability to raise wages, leaving domestic workers “stuck like everybody else”, while expected to absorb rising costs such as transport.
Tekia pointed to the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) as a critical but largely inaccessible safety net in practice, saying low compliance left most domestic workers unprotected when they lost their jobs.
“Up to 80% of domestic workers’ employers are not registering their workers for UIF,” she said. “So when the time comes that they need to dismiss them, the worker is left without any safety net.”
Even where UIF was available, labour protections were often misunderstood or ignored.
Tekia added that there was a widespread misconception that “if you don’t want your domestic worker to work for you anymore, you can just tell her that and tell her she doesn’t need to come back tomorrow”.
Tekia stressed that dismissal without following due process was illegal, even in cases where employers could no longer afford to retain a worker or are relocating.
“Even if you have a legitimate reason, you have to go through a retrenchment process if you can’t afford to pay someone anymore. You have to pay severance pay. Those processes are clearly laid out and not unreasonable or unmanageable,” she said.
However, she added that weak compliance in the domestic work sector meant many workers never benefit from the protections. As a possible adjustment, she suggested that where full-time work was no longer affordable, employers considered reducing hours rather than ending employment entirely, which could also reduce transport costs for workers.
She referred employers to the “Dignity in Every Home” website for guidance on the legal obligations.
The African National Congress (ANC) Nelson Mandela Region has expressed deep concern over the worsening cost-of-living crisis, saying it is engaging directly with communities that are struggling to make ends meet amid rising prices for fuel, food, electricity and transport.
The region says it understands that many households are now forced to make difficult choices between basic needs.
“The recent fuel price increases have a ripple effect throughout the economy, contributing to higher transport costs and increased prices for goods and services,” the ANC Nelson Mandela Region said.
“We acknowledge that these realities are placing immense strain on households that are already facing economic hardship.”
They added that the government has introduced several interventions to cushion vulnerable groups, including the continuation of social grants, the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant, free basic services for qualifying households and public employment programmes aimed at providing temporary income support.
It also pointed to ongoing efforts to strengthen food security, expand local economic development and improve public transport systems.
ATM leader Vuyo Zungula has called for stronger accountability from the government, arguing that the state must take responsibility for the worsening socioeconomic conditions affecting citizens.
He said, “the government cannot distance itself from responsibility while citizens are struggling daily,”adding that authorities must “find and implement real solutions rather than continue with statements of concern,” as rising unemployment and living costs continue to deepen hardship across communities.
According to COSATU spokesperson Zanele Sabela, workers and low-income households have been among the hardest hit by recent petrol price increases. She noted that many workers already spend a substantial portion of their income on transport while supporting extended family members.
“Workers are struggling to make ends meet,” said Sabela.
“For those working in provinces far away from home, they have to pay rent, buy electricity and food themselves, and also send money home; life has become increasingly unbearable.”
COSATU argues that rising costs of food, electricity, transport and other necessities are leaving workers with less disposable income to cover essentials such as healthcare and education.
The federation highlighted domestic workers, farm workers, construction workers, hospitality workers and social grant recipients among those most severely affected by the current cost-of-living crisis.
The organisation also expressed concern about growing levels of household debt, warning that many workers are increasingly relying on credit to survive.
“Households are being pushed deeper into debt just to survive,” Sabela added. “This is not sustainable, and it is eroding the dignity of working people.”
The UDM echoed these concerns, describing the situation as a severe cost-of-living crisis affecting both low- and middle-income households. The party said, “for many families, survival has become a monthly balancing act between food, transport, electricity and debt repayments.”
It further warned that fuel price increases have a ripple effect across the economy, raising transport and operational costs that are passed on to consumers.
The UDM also pointed to structural issues such as unemployment, weak economic growth, energy insecurity, infrastructure failures, and rising municipal tariffs as key drivers of the crisis.
Consumers see little relief as electricity, water and education costs outpace inflation, as costs remain elevated, said the Competition Commission.
In the Cost of Living report, the commission identified evidence of “price stickiness” in several food products, where decreases in producer prices were not fully or immediately passed on to consumers.
While retail prices tended to increase when input costs rose, they did not appear to decline when costs fell. The commission identified this price stickiness as a significant concern.
“Without deliberate attention to how essential service prices are formed and transmitted through the economy, cost pressures are likely to remain entrenched, limiting gains in household welfare and slowing broader economic recovery,” said Commissioner Doris Tshepe.
In the case of individually quick frozen (IQF) chicken, producer prices remained broadly stable at about R45, while retail prices increased from approximately R96.38 to R101.56 per 1.5kg between June and December 2025.
For eggs, producer prices declined in mid-2025, but retail prices fell only gradually, suggesting that cost reductions in production were not reflected at the consumer level.
According to the report, electricity prices increased by about 85% and water prices by about 68% between 2020 and January 2026. This was well above headline inflation, which rose by 30% over the same period.
The producer-to-retail price for white maize, a staple for most South African families, reached 37% in November 2025. It experienced a slight decrease from R22.16 in May 2025 to R14.49 per 2.5kg in December 2025. This was largely attributed to resilience in the Agricultural sector.
Primary education costs increased by 37% and secondary education costs by 42%. The report attributes these increases to rising operational costs that are not adequately covered by government funding.
Petrol prices stabilised between April 2025 and January 2026 after sharp fluctuations in previous years.
The commission noted, however, that renewed instability in the Middle East has pushed oil prices higher, placing upward pressure on fuel and transport costs since April.
Taxi fares followed petrol prices, further narrowing the gap between transport costs and household income. People are losing their assets, including cars.
According to Auto Advise, the current number of vehicle and property repossessions is between 5000 to 7000 per month, which roughly equates to between 60 000 to 84 000 repossessions annually.
However, the Experian Consumer Default Index (CDI) registered a 12% year-on-year relative improvement in vehicle loan defaults by the end of 2025, but it was also noted by Experian that the data is highly nuanced as South Africans are deliberately sacrificing their unsecured credit cards to ensure that they protect their primary assets like their vehicles and homes from repossession.
The CDI also noted that banks tightened their lending criteria throughout 2024 and 2025; consequently, fewer riskier profiles entered the market, and the default rate declined.
However, while the default rate improved moving into 2026, it follows a multi-year surge where vehicle defaults peaked to historic highs. The overarching trend from 2021 to 2024 was a sharp, upward trajectory in defaults caused by the South African Reserve Bank’s aggressive rate-hiking cycle
Rising fuel prices, inflation and the recent interest rate hike have severely strained household budgets.
Just before South Africans experienced lockdown, the fuel price was R15.71 per litre for unleaded 93 petrol, R16.03 per litre for unleaded 95 petrol and diesel was R14.57 per litre.
The current fuel price for 93 unleaded has risen to R27.95, 95 unleaded to R28.06, and diesel now sits at R29.26.
But is it all doom and gloom?
The cost-of-living crisis has not diminished interest in art so much as it changed the way collectors approach buying it.
According to art investment expert Monalisa Molefe, South African collectors have become significantly more cautious and deliberate in their purchasing decisions as economic pressures have intensified.
“The decision-making window has become longer for both investment-minded buyers and those who purchase primarily because they connect emotionally with a work,” she said.
Molefe said collectors are increasingly seeking reassurance before committing to a purchase, with many wanting a deeper understanding of an artist’s market position and future prospects.
Among her own clients, she has noticed growing interest in factors such as an artist’s career trajectory, institutional recognition and potential resale value.
“The emotional pull of art is still very much alive, but purchases are increasingly considered rather than spontaneous,” she said, attributing the shift to greater sensitivity around disposable income.
The squeeze on household budgets has also affected the kinds of works people are buying. Molefe said first-time buyers and mid-level collectors are increasingly entering the market through more affordable options such as prints, photography, works on paper and smaller paintings.
As fuel prices increase, interest rates soar and food prices hit through the roof, citizens face tough times with many households battling to put food on the table
