Whenever Vietnamese people discuss the cost of living, they often turn to a familiar metric: the price of a bowl of phở. Many still remember when a bowl cost 20,000, 25,000, or 30,000 đồng (about $1.00 USD). Eventually, prices climbed to 40,000 and 50,000 đồng, and today, a bowl at the famous Phở Bát Đàn in Hà Nội costs between 55,000 and 70,000 đồng, depending on the type. [1]
While a 55,000-đồng breakfast is a trivial expense for someone earning 20 million to 30 million đồng a month, most Vietnamese workers earn far less. According to the National Statistics Office, the average worker’s income in the first nine months of 2026 reached only 9.1 million đồng a month, dropping to 7.8 million đồng for women. [2]
Furthermore, the Region I minimum wage, applicable in many major urban areas, is currently 5.31 million đồng a month.
If a worker on this minimum wage ate a 55,000-đồng bowl of phở for 26 working days, they would spend nearly 27% of their monthly pay on breakfast alone. This illustrative calculation highlights how the cost of an ordinary meal disproportionately impacts different income brackets.
In April 2025, Luật Khoa published “Living on Wages—Part 1: Is 10 Million Đồng a Month Enough to Live On in Hà Nội and Hồ Chí Minh City?”, which analyzed the living costs for factory workers and office employees. [3]
The Vietnamese Magazine translated that report in July 2025 and found that even under the most thrifty assumptions, a 10-million-đồng salary left virtually no room for savings in major cities. A year and a half later, the math remains unchanged for workers, a fact that is difficult to reconcile with the glowing economic reports dominating the press.
On paper, Việt Nam appears to be entering a different era defined by the digital economy, large infrastructure projects, and the rise of new urban areas. [4] The government is actively targeting double-digit GDP growth to propel the country into a new stage of development. [5]
Official statistics even show improvement; In the first nine months of 2026, Việt Nam’s GDP grew 9.01% year-on-year, while the 9.1% rise in workers’ average income successfully outpaced the 4.52% average consumer price inflation.
However, a fast-growing national economy does not guarantee equal benefits. Asset owners and wage earners experience economic growth in vastly different ways, and real estate perfectly illustrates this divide.
In its May 2026 economic report on Việt Nam, the World Bank noted that real estate credit grew by 42% in 2025, which is nearly double the credit growth across the entire banking system. [7] Real estate accounted for 25.5% of outstanding loans, leaving industrial and agricultural credit to grow at a much slower pace.
The report also found that land and housing prices in some areas have surpassed 30 times the annual income of many households. As a result, rising property prices make homeownership increasingly unattainable for those without assets, while rent and mortgage payments drain their remaining income.
An economy can generate immense value, but the distribution of that value remains a separate issue. While property owners see their assets grow, workers must save for many more years just to keep up with housing costs.
These financial pressures even shape decisions regarding marriage and family planning. In 2025, Việt Nam’s fertility rate fell to 1.93 children per woman, dropping below the replacement level. [8]
While the decision to have children involves personal and career choices, the rising costs of housing, education, and child care are difficult to ignore. The government wants citizens to have more children to combat population aging, yet many young families remain hesitant due to the financial burden. [9]
These systemic anxieties also reach across the ocean to the United States. Americans face similar struggles with rent, food costs, medical bills, and anxieties about their children’s futures, but they possess at least one way to respond.
From a Bowl of Phở to the Ballot
On Nov. 3, the Democratic Party secured a sweeping victory in the United States midterm elections. [10] By retaking control of both the House and the Senate, Democrats successfully defeated Republicans in multiple states that were long considered conservative strongholds. The scale of the defeat was so immense that Republican Sen. Ted Cruz publicly acknowledged it was not merely a “blue wave,” but a “blue tsunami.” [11]
Political analysts offer many reasons for the Republican defeat, such as the surging cost of living. According to an Associated Press voter survey, nearly 90% of respondents cited this issue as an important or deciding factor in their vote, with roughly 6 in 10 of those individuals voting for Democratic House candidates. [12] [13] Even Cruz admitted that many Republican politicians had severely underestimated the financial pain voters were experiencing. [14]
Two years ago, Donald Trump returned to the White House on a promise to tame inflation and restore American prosperity. However, voters quickly lost patience as essential expenses continued to burden their lives. In the weeks leading up to the election, Trump attempted to summon the “specter of communism” by branding Democratic candidates with democratic socialist leanings as literal communists. [15]
Yet, those ideological warnings failed to frighten a struggling electorate. During a late October BBC interview at a Michigan hair salon, owner Nicole Williams was asked if she worried about a left-leaning candidate winning. She firmly stated that words like “socialist,” “socialize,” or “social” no longer mattered to her. [16] “Lower my cost of living,” she said.
Two years after American voters returned Trump and the Republicans to power, their ballots shifted the balance of power in Washington. Trump remains president, but his party no longer controls Congress.
Americans’ daily lives may take time to improve after Election Day; food prices will stay high, and rent will remain high. However, citizens who were unhappy with the government possessed the power to voice their anger at the ballot box, forcing those in charge to face a new political reality.
On the other side of the Pacific, there is no need to summon the specter of communism, because a flesh-and-blood Communist Party leads Việt Nam. The story here is very different.
Only One Party
Việt Nam possesses a political reality that the United States does not: a one-party system.
Under Article 4 of Việt Nam’s Constitution, the Communist Party is established as the force leading the state and society. [17] The same article dictates that the party must serve the people, submit to their supervision, and remain accountable to them for its decisions.
While Vietnamese citizens hold the right to elect the National Assembly and local People’s Councils, these elections feature no competition between rival parties for national leadership.
The Constitution requires elected deputies to represent the will and aspirations of the people. However, in the March 2026 National Assembly election, the Communist Party secured 482 of 500 available seats, while the remaining 18 seats went to independent deputies who are not party members. [18]
Politics in Việt Nam functions differently than in the United States. When American voters are dissatisfied with their government, they possess the electoral mechanism to vote for an opposition party, thereby altering the legislature or replacing the executive branch.
In Việt Nam, voting for local or national deputies does not offer the possibility of removing the party that controls the state.
This difference becomes strikingly apparent when examining policies that directly burden daily life.
For instance, since early 2025, fines for numerous traffic violations have risen sharply. Under Decree 168, motorbike riders who disobey traffic signals face fines between 4 million and 6 million đồng, an increase from the previous 800,000 to 1 million đồng.
For cars, the penalty surged from 4 million–6 million đồng up to 18 million–20 million đồng. [19] These steeper fines are intended to deter dangerous driving, but a penalty of several million đồng can easily erase an entire month of wages for a worker earning 5 million to 7 million đồng a month.
Currently, the 16th National Assembly is debating the draft amended Law on Handling Administrative Violations, which was primarily drafted under the leadership of the police ministry. [20] This draft proposes raising the maximum administrative fine for individuals from 1 billion to 1.5 billion đồng and for organizations from 2 billion to 3 billion đồng across specified sectors.
During a Nov. 4 session, several lawmakers urged a closer examination of the statute of limitations and the severe impacts of enforcement measures, emphasizing the risk of disrupting essential services for people who did not even commit the violations. [21]
These legislative debates prove that the National Assembly actively weighs and adjusts policy; however, a larger question remains: how much power do citizens wield over the officials who draft these laws?
Vietnamese citizens are required to obey the law, pay taxes, and navigate complex business regulations. In exchange, legal mechanisms grant them the right to petition, file complaints, monitor state agencies, and demand explanations. However, if a policy actively harms the public for years, or if citizens lose faith in their leaders, the ballot box provides no option to replace the ruling power.
For National Assembly deputies, this lack of electoral alternatives raises questions about the concept of representation.
Article 79 of the Constitution requires deputies to meet with voters and faithfully convey their recommendations. [22] However, in a legislature where nearly every member belongs to the ruling party, their ability to oversee executive power must be measured by concrete results: the policies they opposed, the changes they demanded, and the results they delivered for the public.
An average worker may not care about theoretical debates over political models. They likely only want stable employment, a living wage, a secure home, and a safe environment for their children. Nevertheless, economic, tax, and social welfare policies dictate those basic hopes.
Behind every policy exists a person with the power to decide, and behind that power lies the question of where it originates, how it is checked, and to whom it must truly answer.
Democracy in Pursuit of Happiness
More than 2,000 years ago, Aristotle drew an important distinction in “Politics”: The political community comes into being to sustain life, but it exists for the sake of the good life. [23] For Aristotle, this “good life” is not just about securing basic food or property. It requires the necessary conditions for citizens to develop their abilities, practice virtue, and actively participate in community life. Politics must aim at something much higher than mere survival.
Centuries later, Enlightenment thinkers expanded upon the relationship between the public and political power. In his “Second Treatise of Government” (1689), philosopher John Locke argued that human beings are born free and equal, meaning no individual can be subjected to another’s political power without their consent; a government’s power must derive from the consent of the governed. [24]
In the modern era, Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen provided a new framework for progress in “Development as Freedom” (1999). For Sen, while growth in GDP and income are important tools, true development must be judged by the substantive freedoms that citizens actually enjoy. [25] These freedoms include the right to engage in public discourse, openly criticize policy, and influence the political decisions that shape their futures.
These three thinkers all held different views on specific political institutions, but they all placed human beings at the center of any judgment regarding the purpose and legitimacy of power.
Economic growth can certainly make a society more prosperous. Expansive infrastructure projects and new urban developments provide jobs and housing. However, these are only tools; their true value is in the lives of the people they are designed to serve.
Democracy does not guarantee that citizens will always make the correct choices, nor can an election instantly cure economic hardship. American voters chose Donald Trump and the Republican Party in 2024, yet two years later, a massive portion of those voters pivoted to opposition candidates.
The important factor is not which choice was right, but rather that voters possessed the freedom to change their minds. Through competitive elections, they retain the power to grant authority, withdraw their support, and replace their representatives.
Ironically, even the founders of communism deeply prized democratic rights. In “The Communist Manifesto” (1848), Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels defined one of the first steps of the workers’ revolution as “to win the battle of democracy,” elevating the working class to political power. [26]
Nearly a century later, Hồ Chí Minh echoed this sentiment when he declared, “Ours is a democratic country. All powers belong to the people.” [27]
While that spirit remains technically enshrined in Việt Nam’s Constitution—which dictates that all state power belongs to the people—the very same Constitution grants the Communist Party a monopoly over the state and society.
Back in the United States, Trump attempted to weaponize the fear of communism to rally voters before the midterms. However, it was voters who ultimately decided whether to heed his warnings; they possess the constitutional right to install a party into power and immediately withdraw that support when they are dissatisfied.
In America, the “specter of communism” cannot strip these people of their fundamental right to choose. In Việt Nam, however, a flesh-and-blood Communist Party leads the nation, and it is the exact entity stripping citizens of their most basic rights.
Uyển Thanh wrote this op-ed article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on Nov. 6, 2026. The Vietnamese Magazine translated it into English. The Vietnamese Magazine’s op-ed articles do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of its editorial board.
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