Twitter campaign calling for hike in salaries in the Kingdom started in mid-July through a hashtag has snowballed into a major movement. The Arabic hashtag, which reads “Salary doesn’t meet my needs,” has really caught on bagging the 16th most popular Twitter trend in any language with over 1.2 million tweets per day in just the first two weeks of its launch.

The main objective of the Saudi campaign was to call on the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah to increase salaries of all Saudi employees and student payments, stating that their salaries are not enough for their upkeep with the Kingdom’s rising cost of living.

The online campaign took social media by storm after word spread on social networking sites Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp instant messaging platforms, affirming disappointment with the Kingdom’s economy.

According to reports, many celebrities took part the campaign, supporting their sizeable number of Twitter followers, to spread the word online.

Princess Basma Bint Saud Bin Abdul Aziz was one of the strong supporters of this campaign appealing to officials on her twitter account, declaring that people need to get their rights and she would stand by and support them throughout.

Princess Basma, in her tweets, encouraged the Saudi people to act with patience and hoped that God will change things soon for the better.

“Saudi Arabia is begrudged for its sense of well-being and security,” said Abdulrahman Al-Sadhan, cabinet secretary, in a report by Saudi-based Arabic daily Al-Watan. “Social media is a ‘seditious force.’ Unlike other countries, Saudi Arabia lives in safety, peace, satisfaction and prosperity,” said Sadhan, stating that he believes there is a conspiracy against the Kingdom.

One of the tweeps wrote: “Our reproach isn’t a tactic to protest against the government, but instead to carry the voices of the people in a polite manner.”

A recent study by the World Bank shows that Saudis in the private sector are the least paid compared to other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

The study also showed that the average monthly salary of a Saudi employee in the private sector was SR6400, compared with SR15,200 for nationals and SR23,600 for European private-sector employees.

Media reports and private estimates indicate that between two and four million of native Saudis live under the poverty line.

The Foreign Policy stated in a report early this month that the hashtag also exposed that some Saudis even grieve the newly declared $22 billion Riyadh metro project, portrayed as the largest modern metro system currently under development in the world.

The Foreign Policy report also exaggerates on the government’s efforts to develop the Kingdom’s economy, create jobs, and replace expatriates with Saudi nationals could very well pay surpluses and help perfect some of the destitution about which an increasing number of Saudis are complaining.