For most Israelis, the wave of price increases is not an easy blow on the wing.
When you take into account half of the working Israelis who earn less than NIS 6,000 a month, hundreds of thousands with disabilities, more than a million elderly people and unemployment that has not yet returned to pre-Corona levels - most citizens are in trouble.
Every jump in spending hundreds of shekels a month causes many of us not to finish the month and degenerate into debt life, sinking into credit and loans and falling into the gray market.
The stuttering of the government in the face of the cost of living is embarrassing.
This is an ongoing problem that has put Israel at the forefront of Western society when it comes to the basic basket of subsistence and impossible housing prices.
All this will not be resolved in a celebrity boycott on barn pasta.
A state of emergency requires serious and swift action.
The most urgent task of the government is to build an iron wall to protect the poor.
When Israel is the champion of the Western world in the rate of poor workers, and the Minister of Finance offers an increase of half a shekel per hour to the minimum wage, it is a bad joke.
The "40 minimum" campaign of "Standing Together" is a correct direction reading and a central part of the foundations of the Iron Wall.
It is important to remember that we are workers and not just consumers.
A situation in which work does not relieve poverty in Israel is shameful and requires immediate redress.
Israel also "excels" in the low subsistence allowances in the West.
Instead of protecting the tens of thousands of recipients of the income guarantee and updating the pension significantly, the Treasury maintains the most basic subsistence pension for a couple in the amount of NIS 2,497.
Can anyone start the month with such a sum?
Fund housing, food, fuel, electricity, water?
Not to mention "luxuries" like communication, education and culture?
The second component in the Iron Wall must be the updating of subsistence allowances, including disability allowance, seniors and Social Security alimony.
The price hikes also exposed the huge profits of the retail chains, which took advantage of the corona crisis to increase profits and distribute huge salaries to owners and managers.
When there is a slump, everyone sees the truth ... This is an opportunity to enact the maximum wage law and correct the returns in which owners and CEOs earn 100 times as much as junior employees in the organization. For these, the Temple sword.
The iron wall must also include supervision of basic products.
In countless cases, it has been proven that opening the economy to imports and slogans of "competition" end in harm to employees and a jump in the profits of the marketing chains.
Free economy is important, but basic subsistence must be outside of the unsophisticated and unfair competition.
Baby food, wholemeal bread, olive oil and other staples must be accessible to all of us.
Housing is also a basic right and has become a distant dream in Israel.
Basic subsistence also includes education and health.
In Israel, "free education" costs thousands of shekels.
Public health costs thousands of shekels in private insurance.
The Israeli public has doubled the payment for private health insurance in the last decade.
Investing in solid and real public infrastructure of education and health can reduce the cost of living in Israel, because not everything starts and ends in supermarkets.
The government's project to build an economic iron wall is a necessity of the reality that strikes us all.
And the sooner the better.
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