Minimum wage: A rethink

Regular readers will probably know by now what my position on the minimum wage is and how it should be calculated. For those who don’t you can read it Here.

This is how it should be:

There would be a new minimum wage for big business only. The minimum wage for big business would be different for each city and would be calculated like this:

Average weekly rent

Average weekly power bill

Average weekly food bill for family of 4

plus 25%

So you find what the weekly bills are (see above) plus 25% then divide it by 48 (which is the minimum hours people should work per week) and you have the minimum hourly wage.

The 25% bit would be for entertainment or putting some away in the bank.

The minimum wage for small business would be the national average or 15% lower than big business if the national average is bigger in that city than the city minimum wage.

After considering this quite a lot I find that I think this is basically a shitty policy. It needs more added to it. Why do I think it’s a shitty policy? Well for the fact that I developed it for the fact that I was thinking that everyone is a hard worker so they deserve the very minimum. The problem is not everyone is a hard worker and businesses are more likely to hire someone who has actually worked with a proven work ethic rather than someone who has shown no proven work ethic because they are just coming into the jobs market. My solution even has problems in itself one of which can be solved by stopping mass immigration.

My solution is for the minimum wage to only apply to those who have actually worked for one year in the same job. This way we know they have a good work ethic and are a hard worker because they managed to hold down a job for a year.

I see two problems with this:

1. Eastern Europeans and other immigrants have never actually worked in this country so they will cost even less which will drive employers to be even more likely to hire them so before we go with my solution we have to stop mass immigration.

2. Companies will like the idea of this too much and just start hiring those who have never worked and sack them after 11 months and then hire a new lot that have never worked. I don’t think a lot of companies will do this though because I think they would rather have employees that have shown that they are good at their job.

Even though there are problem with this it does have advantages because it will get companies to give those who have never had a job a chance to prove themselves. Personally if I was a manager and I had to choose between two candidates and I was only allowed to give them a set wage I would choose the guy with the experience but I may give the guy without experience a chance if I could give them a trial with a reduced wage.

What does everyone think? Any faults? Any advantages that you see?