The Planet Money men's T-shirt was made in Bangladesh, by workers who make about $3 a day, with overtime. The Planet Money women's T-shirt was made in Colombia, by workers who make roughly $13 a day, without overtime.
The wages in both places are remarkably low by U.S. standards. But the gap between them is huge. Workers in Colombia make more than four times what their counterparts make in Bangladesh. In our reporting, we saw that the workers in Colombia have a much higher standard of living than the workers in Bangladesh.
Noreli Morales, a Colombian worker who helped make our women's T-shirt, lives with her mom and her daughter in an apartment that has a kitchen and a bathroom. Shumi and Minu, Bangladeshi sisters who worked on our men's T-shirt, share a single room with Minu's husband. There's no running water, no kitchen. Noreli sends her daughter to daycare; Minu can't afford daycare, so her daughter lives back in the village, with her parents.
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