Cutting the Minimum Wage Would Be Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel

The Small Firms Association Director was on RTE news this morning pushing for a cut in the minimum wage. When asked whether she would be prepared to take a wage cut herself she managed to dodge out of answering.
She claimed that Ireland's Minimum Wage is the highest in Europe. She said rural areas in particular were losing jobs as a result. Hotel owners also complained that they can't compete because other EU hotels operate with much lower wage costs.

Quote :

15/07/2008 - 12:00:12 - Breaking News
Friends First says 2008 and 2009 can be written off as far as the economy is concerned, with no recovery likely until 2010.
In his latest quarterly report, the financial institution's chief economist, Jim Power, says he expects the economy to contract by 1% this year.
He says the economy will only recover when the house-price adjustment runs its course and when oil prices begin to fall, which isn't likely to happen for another two years.
Mr Power also says a public-sector pay freeze is warranted to help this recovery, but cutting the minimum wage, as requested by the Small Firms Association, would be scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Personally I think the minimum wage is the least of our problems. What do other people think?

Well I think it has gotten too high, but the idea of cutting it back now is a bit marieantionettish.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Well I think it has gotten too high, but the idea of cutting it back now is a bit marieantionettish.

I'd agree with that. Ideologically I am against the minimum wage being cut. However, if the honest truth of the situation is that it needs to be, then I would somewhat silently support it. I would certainly rather a 35 euro per week pay cut than join the dole queue - that's just me. That said, it should be avoided.

cactus flower wrote:

Personally I think the minimum wage is the least of our problems. What do other people think?

I think it's too high too and guess it ends up skewing our economy in certain directions - tourism should be made more attractive which it isn't going to be if there's a high wage thus high prices; immigrants from Poland and Spain seem to come here for the money and for the money and to learn English in that order - I don't know about other crowds and that's an observation from personal experience of speaking to people. What can we do with the reality of part of the economy where people come here to work and save and then go away, if that is indeed the reality? Our economy gets skewed into certain shapes - money stays in banks here for a while or gets sent directly abroad as a result of this above if it's significant at all. What can we do about it if it's a significant quarter of the economy?

They say there are 420,000 foreigners living here so how many of them are doing that above I wonder? This is the thing about wages and gold rushes - there's high activity but not necessarily long-term economics.

Unlike most of my fellow anarchists I'm against minimum wage. I've always believed it would drive inflation - revalue food and other essentials, effectively make the poor poorer.

I don't like the concept but would consider the idea of shafting the poor now to be a disgusting act. You cannot be expected to get away with giving a pittance with one hand and ripping it away with the other.

I've always said that if minimum wage was not an immoral idea then neither should the idea of a maximum wage be repugnant either. I suggest that this is what should happen now. Introduce a maximum wage and keep greedy fingers away from the necks and the pockets of the poor.

If the government and their masters are not prepared to do this then they should stfu.

Fair point about the maximum wage Hermes - makes more sense than a minimum (which I'm relieved you disagree with too).

What does a minimum wage really mean anyway? Shouldn't there be a basic income of a dole nature in society which people can choose if they like? They'd have a certain basic standard of living from it and could work for more if they wanted more stuff. This might limit the amount of social welfare staff needed and thus reduce costs of implementing a simpler system.

I think CORI often talk about this and it catches my attention - they also talk about combining tax credits and dole which I don't understand. It's amazing how they are never listened to.

A maximum wage, well that would be an interesting one. What happens to all those bonuses that some get? Does the multinational just pocket them?

If a maximum wage was imposed then I doubt that many of those with wealth would lose sleep as there are so many ways round it.

For the idea of minimum wage to have any sense of credibility or impact, a number of things must be implemented beside it. Because these things were deliberately ignored, minimum wage was nothing more than a shafting exercise.

To bring about fairness, one should first look at social welfare. That should be the 'minimum wage.'

In conjunction with the introduction of a minimum wage there should be a price freeze on essentials like food. Minimum wage should then be calculated so that the poor can afford to eat (at least). Minimum wage should then be locked in with the price of essentials, so that when the price of essentials rises, so does minimum wage. This would have stopped our government's masters from shafting everyone.

The introduction of minimum wage accomplished but one thing in this country; it made the poor poorer.

It was obvious that when minimum wage was being introduced, that the price of food etc. was going to rise, thus nullifying any potential good that might have come from the introduction. Big business afterall, was not going to sit back and see its hard earned extortion be ripped from its hands. The poor who received no minimum wage were shafted by the price increases that followed and those who did receive the minimum wage, had whatever rise they got nullified by the price increases.

To make matters worse, the introduction of minimum wage was accompanied by a surge of parasites offering more credit than ever before.

As Cactus said at the start of this thread. Things have gone way beyond any semantical minimum wage argument. Not only is the belt going to be force tightened, it's going to be ripped upwards around the neck area too.

All this posturing about the poor getting too much cake is merely setting the scene for the usual blamehounds to be established as the guilty parties, when our economy gets flushed. The real and rich criminals will play the victim, and we'll feel sorry for them having to open the trapdoor on the gallows for us.

Squire wrote:

A maximum wage, well that would be an interesting one. What happens to all those bonuses that some get? Does the multinational just pocket them?

If a maximum wage was imposed then I doubt that many of those with wealth would lose sleep as there are so many ways round it.

Any such trickery could be offset by introducing a tax rate of 100% on any income beyond the maximum wage.

All in all, my suggestion of a maximum wage is more cynicism on my part than anything else. It is meant to evidence the stupidity of the introduction of a minimum wage.

As previously stated, I would have no problem with the minimum wage being cut for jobs where staff are commonly in receipt of gratuities. Wait staff are taking home a disproportionate amount of income while many restaurants and pubs are going to the wall.

Hermes wrote:

For the idea of minimum wage to have any sense of credibility or impact, a number of things must be implemented beside it. Because these things were deliberately ignored, minimum wage was nothing more than a shafting exercise.

To bring about fairness, one should first look at social welfare. That should be the 'minimum wage.'

In conjunction with the introduction of a minimum wage there should be a price freeze on essentials like food. Minimum wage should then be calculated so that the poor can afford to eat (at least). Minimum wage should then be locked in with the price of essentials, so that when the price of essentials rises, so does minimum wage. This would have stopped our government's masters from shafting everyone.

The introduction of minimum wage accomplished but one thing in this country; it made the poor poorer.

It was obvious that when minimum wage was being introduced, that the price of food etc. was going to rise, thus nullifying any potential good that might have come from the introduction. Big business afterall, was not going to sit back and see its hard earned extortion be ripped from its hands. The poor who received no minimum wage were shafted by the price increases that followed and those who did receive the minimum wage, had whatever rise they got nullified by the price increases.

To make matters worse, the introduction of minimum wage was accompanied by a surge of parasites offering more credit than ever before.

As Cactus said at the start of this thread. Things have gone way beyond any semantical minimum wage argument. Not only is the belt going to be force tightened, it's going to be ripped upwards around the neck area too.

All this posturing about the poor getting too much cake is merely setting the scene for the usual blamehounds to be established as the guilty parties, when our economy gets flushed. The real and rich criminals will play the victim, and we'll feel sorry for them having to open the trapdoor on the gallows for us.

Good post Hermes.

The part in bold hadn't occurred to me before - there are now over 200,000 people on social welfare which is 197 euros per week for a single person and probably less for a couple so inflated food prices driven by the minimum waged and upwards competes unfairly with the concept of social welfare. How can social welfare be justified if prices of essentials somehow aren't fixed, as you say, to a basic level of income?

Maybe food prices are subsidised in some way as they don't seem too high to me. Free markets and full competition are fine in theory in terms of food production and other essentials (energy and electricity being the other bugbears) so do you believe the market, if allowed to be free, can provide the cheapest and best food and other essentials or should those markets be given a guiding hand?