So; Labour is promising to raise the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour in its first year if elected in November.
It sounds good for Labour's constituency, and it was met with resounding applause at Labour's congress in Wellington today. But is a minimum wage of $15/hr sustainable in the current economic climate? We seriously doubt it.
Lifting the minimum wage from $13/hour to $15/hour in one fell swoop is an increase of 15.4%. For small businesses who have already endured three very tough years, it could well be the last straw. Businesses will either go to the wall, unable to meet their wage bills, or they will stop hiring. Whichever, having such a burden imposed on them will be counterproductive.
Not that Labour will care. Phil Goff is going to promise anything if he believes that there is electoral advantage in it. He forgets that the New Zealand economy is hugely reliant on the contribution of small businesses; but it is small business that will have to bear the cost of this sop by Phil Goff to his trade union backers.
43 comments:
A scurrilous election bribe by Caretaker Phil.
By the time Liarbour gets in again, if ever, inflation will require a minimum wage in the high 20's...
Bribe is the word PM. Of course, as soon as the minimum wage goes up by 15%, employers will have to give EVERYONE a 15% increase to protect parity. Any economic recovery will be killed stone-dead.
If it was so simple, why not solve all the problems they have helped create and put it up to $20
What part of 25% youth unemployment don't these muppetts grasp.
Why stop at 20 bucks Lou, go for $25 and we will be the richest nation on earth, sadly far too many financial illiterates, many educated in other fields see it all as that simple and will vote accordingly.
Yes Iv2 bribe is the polite word for it,
corrupt and reckless destruction of the economy for political gain could be another description.
Why not give every citizen a $1 000 000 bonus for Christmas that could cinch it.
You miserable grasping Tories!
Goff has it right. A fair minimum wage is exactly what ordinary New Zealanders want. This proposal will fly for Goff and his offering it to us shows Key to be the 'keep wages low, keep unemployment up' nasty fellow that he is. Reflects badly on you mean-hearted wannabe Tories as well.
Goff's on a winner here, for sure! He's got you all with the 'No Asset Sales' thread as well. Pincer movement! You're screwed!
Welcome back Robert Guyton!
You might want to pull out the old socialist "fair" Tiny but "affordability" to small business is actually what counts when the payroll is paid.
'Fair' is a socialist word Lou?
Sad.
Raising the minimum wage will absolutely crucify the horticultural export sector, no if's, no but's, no maybe's. These sectors are heavily reliant upon large volumes of labour, and the prices they receive for their products are set by an international marketplace where we compete against other countries paying significantly lower wages. Margins are slim at the moment, and there is simply no fat in these businesses to asorb an increase of this extent.
It's not sad tiny, you want the world to be fair but the world has never worked that way.
Smart people train, learn and do what they can to move up the wage scale, tiny brains hang around moaning about the minimum.
"you want the world to be fair but the world has never worked that way"
Lou - the day you gave up striving for fairness for everyone was a sad day indeed. I'd like you to reflect on that decision.
I prefer to focus on real fruits of the spirit rather than obscure concepts like fairness.
Quite so Lou; is it "fair" for a government to impose 15% across-the-board wages rises on employers who are already struggling to make a buck? Patently, it's not. Will that stop Labour? Not on your nelly.
Lou - that 'fairness' is to you an 'obscure concept' leads me to conclude that you are joking with me. No reasonable human being would describe fairness as an obscure concept. A Tory maybe, but not a reasonable human being.
when things (at work) turn to shit, or there is a near miss/accident etc, and you want to find the REAL reason, they say you should ask 5 whys. I think the 1st 2-3 are designed to get through the bullshit.
So, maybe people who are unemployed or on low wages (especially those with up to 8 kids) should ask themselves the 5 whys to why they are in the position of near poverty. If the answer is the National Party or indeed John Key, then maybe they should stop lying to themselves.
@ Tiny - fairness goes both ways. Is it fair for a government to unliterally impose a 15% cost increase on a small business? Are you forgetting that businesses with less than 20 staff make up around 80% of the economy?
Fairness is like happiness, the end of a means, not a means to an end.
Fair?
Was it fair to employers when Key imposed an increased Kiwisaver contribution on them in the Budget?
Eh old chappies?
Didn't hear much Tory whining when that went down.
With my employer's hat on Tiny, 1% is a darned sight fairer than 15.4%.
Yes Lou - fairness is like happiness - something that we should all wish on others as well as ourselves. The Tory all-for-me-but-none-for-you view of the world is twisted.
Nearly as twisted as your your-money-is-my-money worldview Tiny; nearly.
Hooray for that 1% the Inventory2!
Captain Key's your hero and can do no wrong. He's screwing you while you cheer him on. The '1%' btw, is real, while Goff's proposal is just that, a proposal. How you whine over a proposed increase yet suck up the one that will really cost you.
Sucker!
There you are wrong tiny
The words I have always used in having a few hundred people working for me over the years are "to be as generous as possible".
I know it is an obsure Christian concept but it worked.
I'm not in Kiwisaver, I took steps before it was available to look after my own future. Why should my taxes subsidise people to lazy to sort out their own retirement plan. The adjusted plan announced is still pretty good. If you don't like it then stop paying in and when you turn 65 (or 67 whatever) then learn to like baked beans and mince.
jabba - the epitome of Tory selfishness - "Why should I blah, blah, blah.."
Because you are a member of a community, you selfish ass. You didn't get here on your own, you were helped into this world, helped through your childhood and are helped by the goodwill of the rest of your community now. Hire your own teachers did you? Pay for the roads you cycled on did you?
Selfishness in its most naked form - jabba the Tory.
Lou - generosity is an obscure Christian concept?
Were you raised daft?
Of course generosity works - it has 'fairness' at its core. Remember fairness Lou and your wobbly interpretation of it?
You'll find these concepts being applied outside of the Christian community Lou. I work to the principal and so does Phil Goff.
Key, no.
Goff works on the princpal of being generous with other people's mone(sweat,talent,risk,work,ideas) and calling it "fair".Mind you he has had so many years to perfect it.I would judge him as epic failure.
Lou - Key isn't using other people's money to do the things he's done?
How odd!
Whose money was it that bailed out South Canterbury Finance?
Whose money was it that went toward the tax cuts etc. etc. etc. etc...
I'm a little amazed that you believe that Key is using his own savings to run the country - more than a little amazed in fact!!!
If you read my posts on No Minister Tiny you will know i am no great fan of Key.
I just hold Goff in more contempt because he is more dishonest.
I took a look Lou and with all due respect, Psycho Milts coverage of Goff's challenge to farmers is much better.
I agree Tiny, Milt makes sense.
But being a dairy farmer myself I would rather take my chances with Key.Labour will never win a another rural seat so Goff would take every opportunity to stick it to farmers given the chance.
Thankfully he will never get close.
Nobody's money went towards tax cuts.
Tax cuts do not involve money changing hands.
Key 'balanced' his tax cut gift to the wealthy with a GST grab that took from those who couldn't afford a further erosion to their wages. That's where 'the money came from'.
Nasty business, that Tory money switcheroo, eh!
I come in peace.
We're trying for quads.
4 little horsemen of the apocalypse would be nice.
Christian conservatives and right-wingers are odd.
End-of-times anybody? Jesus was a radical lefty. Got executed for it. Likely he hung around with a lot of people who took drugs considering the stories they made up. And the unthinking right hold him up as a bastion of money grubbing tories. Bizarre doesn't begin to describe this supernatural skullduggery and economic chicanery.
Lou - Nash's reveal of some of the activities of dairy farmers, minimising their tax contribution etc. is based on reality as I suspect you know. He chose his figures and sample carefully but everyone I know (rural community) immediately recognised the story he was pointing at. Now Goff is leveraging from that, as he should, and is waking the populace up to rorty behaviour that has gone entirely un-exposed under rortin' Key and English. That story's time came. There will be more.
you finally get it tiny, the world isn't fair.
never will be.
I've always known it Lou, but that hasn't stopped me trying to make it as fair as possible for everyone.
Why did you give up?
Key balanced his budget.
He did not balance tax cuts. No money was paid from one tax payer to another in the way of a tax cut.
I really don't care Tiny I bought my share of the farm based on return on capital. Like everything in this world it involves risk.If I loose I won't be knocking on any taxpayers door to bail me out.
Ho hum, anonymous is a pedant.
I'm off now.
40 comments Inventory2!
You've got your mojo back!
Goff needs to say how he will tax farmers differently from the way they are taxed now.
His fingerpointing is only attracting votes so far from people who are already in the envy game.
I'm 17, I work on Minimum Wage. I don't want $15 an hour , I want a Youth Rate!!
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