Episode 135: If We're Real Quiet, Maybe They Won't Notice the New Minimum Wage

Previously in Europe

That would be nice... an EU Wide Minimum Wage. Maybe it wouldn't be? At least not exactly as the S&D have previously said would be good.
 

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That would be nice... an EU Wide Min Wage

At a public debate in Warsaw, Poland, Mr Timmermans said: "We need a minimum wage in the European Union.

"Equal to 60 percent of the median wage in every member state, I mean."

this factcheck from Euractiv is terrible https://www.euractiv.com/section/eu-elections-2019/news/fact-check-is-equal-eu-minimum-wage-possible-as-bulgarian-socialists-claim/

doesn't go into supposed policy or really where the calculations are coming from really (there's or the BSP)

Macron is talking about it https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/06/1040251

Merkel is talking about it (kinda) https://www.politico.eu/article/german-chanellor-angela-merkel-calls-for-comparable-minimum-wage-across-eu/

• Italy has a sectoral collective bargaining system involving unions meaning there's a minimum wage but it differs from industry to industry (the lowest is agriculture at 874.65p/m or 5.47p/h)
• Austria has a sectoral collective bargaining system as well, but a minimum has been set by these collectives (1500p/m) and you also get 14 monthly paychecks (holiday bonus and Christmas bonus) this results in an effective hourly minimum wage of 14.20p/h before tax
• Cyprus has a set of different minimum wages for certain situations. These were set by the government but don't cover everything.
• Sweden has a sectoral collective bargaining system involving unions
• Denmark has a sectoral collective bargaining system involving unions
• Finland has a sectoral collective bargaining system involving unions

Some official stats from Eurostat:

• https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/DDN-20190131-2 (general levels)
• https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Minimum_wage_statistics&stable=0&redirect=no#Minimum_wages_expressed_in_purchasing_power_standards (scaled for PPS)
• PPS definition https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Glossary:Purchasing_power_standard_(PPS)

An unexpected smart thing from New Labour?

So the UK introduced theirs in 1998 at a now hilariously low £3.60 gradually increasing over time.

The economist even thought this very low rate was probably just fine as it wouldn't really impact anything directly unless the Bank of England did something in response

https://www-economist-com.libproxy.kcl.ac.uk/britain/1998/06/18/unveiled

They've just progressively been increasing it over time... not enough almost certainly but it was a good way to get the lever on the books. I dunno maybe?