I have no idea if there is truth to this at all without sources sited:
If they are in fact making $290 a month at 14hrs 6 days a week, they are making 86 cents an hour. hmmm. I certainly hope that is a livable wage over there.
Even at those rates, it is $6.88/hour (approx) in Yuan. I don't believe they work that many hours a day, when I worked for Chinese companies in Shanghai (production companies) they were working 8 to 10 hours a day; but did work 6 days a week. Also, there were mandated hour long rest times during the day so the 8 to 10 hours were more like 7 to 9 hours of work time with an hour rest after lunch.
General rule of thumb is based cost of living and everything else; just convert the Yuan value to US dollars and that is the approximate value of the money. Thus if they are now making $2,200 yuan per month it would be like us making $2,200 US per month (about $26,400 per year). Not a ton, but for those who work these jobs, they are uneducated (most likely never finished middle school) and unskilled.
Additionally, think of this, they live in the company dorms, they eat at the cafeteria and they have company health care. They pay nothing or almost nothing for these services. Thus the $26,400 per year is what they make TAKE HOME (round that down to $25,000 per year that they can SAVE).
Yes, this pay is actually quite decent. Imagine if you could save $25,000 per year, how much would you have to earn to save that? $50,000/year?
Sure that's $25,000 yuan per year savings; and only approximately $3000 USD, but it is the relative cost. To them, this is a good amount of money.
Again, think of the rule of thumb, if cost of living is the same proportion as in the US to the salary, then change the Yuan to Dollars and think of it that way. BUT the cost of living there is a much LESS percentage of their daily live.
Example. The woman I dated who lived in Beijing. Her father made $5000 yuan per month. They lived in a very nice apartment building with two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, laundry room and a balcony. (I liked it when I was there). They were paying $5 yuan per month rent! Granted this was 20 years ago; and rents have gone up (from my friends who still live there) but they are still not nearly as expensive as they are here.
