MALAYSIA’S M40 is quietly slipping – under the weight of rising costs, overlooked needs and outdated assumptions.
While prices are climbing and salaries are stagnant, public policy still treats the middle class as if it is doing just fine.
That is the magic trick: you can earn about RM6,000 a month, have two children, juggle therapy appointments, car payments and a leaking ceiling and still be told you are “not struggling enough” to qualify for help.
I say this not as an observer but as someone living it. I am a working mother of two. One of my children is autistic, which means extra care, structure and therapies that do not come cheap – and certainly are not covered.
Every ringgit we spend is calculated. Every ringgit we do not have, even more so. On paper, we are middle class but in real life, it often feels like we are running a marathon on a treadmill.
The bills don’t stop, the prices don’t pause and the only “luxury” we have had lately is upgrading to a bigger rice cooker so everyone gets enough at dinner.
The M40 – once-prized income bracket – has become Malaysia’s invisible group. Too “well-off” for assistance, yet too overstretched to save.
We are told to be grateful because “others have it worse” but where does that leave us when we are quietly sinking and no one even notices?
Some of us have already slipped into the B40 and have not realised it yet because the lines we draw around poverty are based on outdated charts, not actual living costs.
Meanwhile, policymakers still speak in neat income categories – T20, M40, B40 – as though they are fixed identities, not rough markers in an economy spinning faster than we can catch up.
Let’s talk about the M40 – the group that was once considered comfortably middle class. Many of us are dual-income families living in cities, just trying to stay afloat.
We may have a car and a modest home but try covering therapy sessions, school supplies, groceries and an emergency plumber in the same month and suddenly “middle class” feels like a cruel joke. We are not worst off but we are far from secure.
These days, being M40 just means you are too broke for a holiday but too “rich” for help. And if that sounds like a financial twilight zone – well, it is.
Bank Negara and Khazanah have already raised the alarm. Wages have not kept up with the cost of living and household debt is rising. But when aid is announced, the script stays the same: “This is for the B40. The rest can manage.”
Spoiler: We are not managing; we are barely surviving.
And we are doing it quietly. We cut back on fresh produce, postpone dental visits and tell our children “maybe next time” more than we would like. It is not dramatic enough to make headlines but it wears you down – slowly and steadily.
And here is the thing: most of us are not asking for handouts; we are asking for recognition – for policies that reflect reality and for systems that understand that raising a neurodivergent child or any child in today’s economy is no small feat, especially when support is fragmented and affordability keeps shifting.
It is hard to describe what it feels like, to constantly explain why you need help only to be told you earn just above the line, as if we are all stuck in a game of financial limbo and the government keeps saying: “Sorry, too tall to qualify.”
The risk here is not just personal; it is political. A growing number of middle-class families are losing faith. We feel like we don’t count, like we are not seen. And when a society begins to lose its middle – economically or emotionally – it also loses its centre of gravity.
We need to rethink how we talk about aid, income and support. It is no longer just about the lowest rung; it is about everyone clinging to the fragile middle steps, hoping they don’t fall, and wondering if anyone would notice if they did.
Hashini Kavishtri Kannan is the assistant news editor of theSun.
Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
