The cost of labor in Cambodia is nothing like that in the Western world. Not even close. While an immigrant day-laborer in the United States may earn between seven and 10-dollars per hour, in Cambodia, semi-skilled workers earn between one and three dollars...a day.
You may ask, 'How does anyone live on that kind of money today?'. There are several reasons. For one, there are very few mortgages in Cambodia. During the Khmer Rouge regime (1975 - 1979) all private property reverted to the State and all homes in every city were vacated by force and occupants were marched to the hinterlands to plant and grow rice. Resistance to this immediate command was met with death - on the spot. No exceptions.
Details will be forever sketchy, but it is loosely thought that 45% of the rural population and 75% of the city population died prematurely from murder, disease or starvation.
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