Taiwan’s impressive economic growth rate and the structural gap between grassroots experience

The Accountant General Office recently announced the latest economic growth rate forecast, and the performance is extremely impressive. Driven by the AI ​​wave and the demand of the semiconductor supply chain, Taiwan has once again demonstrated its strong industrial resilience to the world. These achievements are indeed worthy of recognition. However, whenever the government releases these exciting statistics, the discussion on the streets is often not about celebration, but about a profound physical disparity. If the overall economy is really so good, why are most people's lives getting tighter and tighter?

When discussing this phenomenon, the point is not to rush to badmouth the economy or defend official figures, but that we must face the fact calmly: GDP figures have never been the only criterion for measuring national happiness and quality of life.

Taiwan's economy is now facing serious structural tears. This wave of prosperity driven by AI is highly concentrated in a small number of high value-added, capital- and technology-intensive technology industries. These leading companies have used extremely high per capita productivity to boost the overall economic growth rate and "average wages." However, for the traditional manufacturing, small and medium-sized enterprises, and domestic service industries that account for the vast majority of Taiwan's employment population, this wave of dividends is almost out of reach. When a small number of high-paying groups significantly raise the average, the bright and beautiful data on the statistical tables conceal the stagnant median wages and the real plight of grassroots workers.

A more serious challenge lies in the continued loss of real purchasing power. In recent years, house prices, rents, meals and other daily expenses have been rising year after year. The slight increase in salary on the books has been swallowed up by inflation and the cost of living in an instant. For the majority of office workers and ordinary families, they cannot feel the fruits of economic growth, but only feel a sense of relative deprivation and increasingly heavy survival pressure.

Neither the government nor the ruling and opposition parties need to stop at a war of words about "feelings" or "not feeling". The real test is whether the government can guide the technological and financial benefits of the technology industry to spill over through specific industrial policies, assist the vast number of small and medium-sized enterprises in digital and AI transformation, and ensure that labor wage growth can reasonably reflect the increase in productivity.

Taiwan's leading technology companies have used extremely high per capita productivity to boost the overall economic growth rate and "average wages." The picture shows TSMC Nanke Factory. The ultimate goal of economic policy is to transform growth into job opportunities and life improvements that are visible and tangible to most people. Don’t let this wave of AI prosperity stop at beautiful statistical tables and become a feast for the few and an island for the majority.