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 This is a tough question at a time when a piece of candy costs 50 satang. With Bt2 in hand, you can buy four candies. Big deal. Bt2 is not even enough to buy one egg.

You need at least Bt8 to buy a bottle of soft drink, let alone Bt14 for a can.

If you use public transportation, you know that the non-air-conditioned bus fare now starts at Bt7.

On the streets, the cheapest noodles you can find anywhere cost Bt12. But that is enough only for a small bowl of boat noodles, which cannot half fill your stomach.

 Nobody can give a satisfactory answer to the Bt2 question, particularly workers in Chaiyaphum who are distraught by the Cabinet's resolution to raise their minimum wage by only Bt2 a day. They should be in distress given that labourers elsewhere, except in Sukhothai and Uttaradit, won a bigger increase. Workers in Chiang Rai are now enjoying the maximum Bt11 increase. There are 27,200 workers in Chaiyaphum, most of them working for 1,860 textile factories.

The Nation News Centre on Monday quoted Theevara Witanakorn, chief of the province's industrial federation, as saying that Chaiyaphum is short of 5,000 workers as the province has become less attractive in terms of wages.

After the recent wage increase, workers in Chaiyaphum are entitled to a daily wage of Bt148.

Pikul Sohsai, 30, a sewing worker, noted that some of her colleagues have moved out of the province after learning of the tiny wage increase.

"We just can't live here," she said. "Things here are as expensive as in other provinces, but our wages are terribly low. Who can live on that low pay?"

What surprised me is Theevara's notion that manufacturers in the provinces are waiting for an official review -whether the wage should be raised to Bt150 or Bt152. He noted that if the province maintains the daily wage at Bt148, manufacturers would be delighted to raise it to Bt150 to keep workers.

At Bt150, their minimum wage is raised by Bt4. Still small, but it may encourage workers in Chaiyaphum to remain in their province and not migrate to bigger cities which promise higher wages but also more problems for their families.

Then again, what you can do with Bt4?