Will minimum wage laws work here?

[cal127]

U are right...i was just pointing out everybody want to help low wage earners but never think enough.

First reaction is always govt must do this govt must do that.

The more important question with minimum wage argument. Is. "Then what?"

Myopic policies tend to ignore what next and only focus on the immediate issue.

That was what caused the brain drain in the first place when govt anyhow import FT to take up PMET jobs with little to no consideration to the question "Then what?"

Myopic policies tend feel good at the beginning but cause havoc in the long run.


And ya lor...for those who really feel that strongly about low wage earner....ask yourself....when was the last time you tipped the cleaner auntie or uncle?

Pls dont come virtue signal trying to push your own beliefs onto others while doing nothing yourself.

Then what? It may or set us on a a path at least to achieve the desire of additional funds in the hands of the "needed" and at the same time prevent distortion in the market. The market is not the arbiter of our values. It is the arbiter of prices. The two are very different and when the market ignores human values that is when we get into the kind of economy that makes nonsense like socialism and communism sound appealing to ordinary people when they feel shortchanged.

We are not just creatures driven solely by economics and the invisible hand of the market. We have values, moral values, which deal with "should". At one time, child labor was "reality" but the "shoulds" eventually won out and eliminated it in most of the world. The point is that we can change our version of economic reality without throwing capitalism under the bus.

But letting the markets proceed on their merry ways by doing nothing. The markets will be made as the result of decisions by people and being flawed the markets can reflect that resulting in dysfunctional outcomes. After all, we work so that we can make enough money to take care of ourselves and our families. If the market is subverted (i.e., crony capitalism) then you have to take corrective states before something as silly as socialism sounds good to a lot of the electorate.

Arguably crony capitalism only occurs when the govt meddles in the market with policies like workfare. If the market is left to its own devices crony capitalism, monopolies, etc. will be harder to form.

By the way, those Austrian economists u rely on: the only people who are 100% correct are dead. To err is human and death is the only escape from making mistakes.

 

[LKY156]

Totally agree. But the point is there is NO floor pricing on the salary. A minimum wage would help to safe guard the worker’s interests.

Why must rental, profit be always given higher priority? Why must consumers pay for their profits in order to allocate more to the salaries ?

But if donch give to lowest bidder, then peepur will craim ish pork barrel politics. Rike is US, 1 screw for aeroplane can cost over USD1000.

Posted from PCWX using iPhone12,3

 

[azeris10]

Minimum wage and retrenchment insurance is inevitable in covid climate.
Even pap will cave in.
The question is how much Govt will fund this.
They don’t mind throwing billions to companies, but throwing some of that to individuals they very reluctant.

 

[RAWR!!]

whats the difference between a 9% GST and min wage?

Biz owners are not affected by the 9% because they can recover that cost from the government, if they want.(biz rev below 1m can opt into gst scheme). Whereas consumers like us we will be subsiding the welfare schemes eg workfare. This means your big towkay can continue to earn his big bucks.

GST is going to affect me when i send my kids to childcare,buy a car or any big ticket item that you will expect someone from middle class to buy or consume. The proportion of my income that goes into GST will be much bigger compared to our rich towkay although in dollar terms, he is expected to contribute more to GST than me.

min wage instead forces business to cut their profits because we now got a choice whether to consume. If you find your caipng too expensive then cook yourself because the boss will then have to decide between closing down his business or reducing his margin. err then now we are losing jobs? then how?

kick out the low wage FW la and your locals can be employed. In any case, business who cannot pay a min of 1.3k should just die anyway.Not productive.

yes my thoughts exactly. dont know why all like got contracts to the business owners must die die buy their products even though it's overpriced.

 

[pureice]

Tbh, i am not very familiar with the criteria of workfare but i am not saying that both are mutually exclusive. With min wage, the cost can be shifted from the workfare scheme to the market where it is more efficient in the implementation. Or you rather all the govt agencies do all the tedious background checks and wasting taxpayer's money?

I have already mentioned that if you raise the wage, the employee must self help and work to justify the pay. If the company cannot afford to pay that much, the business model is wrong somehow as it relies on exploitation and not value creation. Then again, these services are essential services, hardly to cause unemployment especially with MOM quota in place.

Cause if you look at the data now from MOM June 2019 ~~ of 28K people earning less than 1k, there are a large bracket from 15-24 yrs old, as well as half is from 40s onwards. So unemployment might occur from there~ due to companies reducing hiring of partimers/old timers, handling more work to 1 person. Cause wad WP is saying is a blanket minimum wage for all sgreans regardless of industry or sector or type of work. This will also cause discrimination to hire PR over sgreans. A targetted workfare scheme, which undergoes howver ineffcieint/bureacratic checks, at least ensure the cost is justified. We might instead of helping the intended group, causes more harm by reducing their employability. And this is just 1 aspect of it, wage push inflation may also seep into the small Sole properitoships coy.

 

[kaisoz]

Yes, i will agree that both schemes should work hand in hand but more inclined towards shifting it more to market forces.

Like how govt force landlords to pass govt subsidies to retails during covid, simplest and more cost effective.

Well, I am against additional bureaucracy. Having both a Workfare model and another Minimum Wage thing will only incur additional unnecessary costs and serve to confuse those that the scheme(s) are supposed to help.

Why I highlighted your part talking about letting "the market work its magic" is that it seems you are fully trusting the market and that the wage level will find an equilibrium. This is the folly I am referring to. You cannot fully trust the market. That's why SG is in the state it is today.

Your point on "workfare scheme where money is passed from left hand to right hand to dont know whose hand before a certain percentage is used to help the low income workers" is valid.

 

[sanzhu]

Founder bkt pays minimum wages?

 

[soarer]

Just a tool in his toolbox.

 

[devilcup]

Pruss 1 again,

What if minimum wage is implemented to all? Cost of living will go higher right? to implement or not both must have overall policy to balance it out ar but then i not expert so i just say say only.

 

[Misuta]

They can say however bad the gov is...but actual fact is, we experienced good wage growth in this last 10 years. Abiet not equally across the population, but definately better than a lot of developed countries

exactly. min wage is just 懒政, or lazy governance. poverty? so easy, just raise min wage lor. it's a blunt tool without solving the underlying productivity issue.

if min wage is superior, the gov could've just give in and legislate it when it's so much simpler to implement. why 自讨苦吃 and go for progressive wage model which is more difficult to implement?

other countries don't have the same level of execution power as our civil service/govt machinery. just because they opt for the easier route of just legislating min wage doesn't mean we have to follow them.

 

[lockks]

Because, lets say now the cleaners are earning below 1300. Or as what some EDMWers claim, 800/mth to 900/mth.

Then they should just quit the job and go for upskilling https://www.ntuclearninghub.com/sgunitedskills/
Course is paid using skills future and it pays them 1200 allowance a month.

Unless some edmwers here want to claim that upskilling requires more effort than working as a cleaner.

can you please post topics with some substance?
Pap ibs now so low ability. Only k serve as troll online.

 

[SGMale]

pls, go expand your horizon. there are developed countries with no min wage. sweden, switzerland, denmark, norway etc.

https://www.investopedia.com/articl...developed-countries-without-minimum-wages.asp

and you realize SG is one of the rare few of the developed world that have very low unemployment and have seen real income growth over the past decade, while many other developed countries have stagnant or even declining real income even for the middle class?

if min wage so satki, how many developed countries have seen their bottom 20% have a real income growth of 40% over the past decade?

Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/singapo...productivity-decline-spells-out-ruling-partys

Got 200k sinkies unemployed men stuck in nsf leh. Plug this figure into workforce, what is the rates again?

 

[Baddieko]

This is why people want to get WP in so that PAP delivers it's manifesto. They keep saying they care about our lives our jobs our future but.... have you even seen it in action? It's more like edmw big cannon and csb at the moment. Voting WP in is like giving them ntuc points.

The jobs jobs jobs thing i sense is quite delusional hence lose another grc. Mostly locals dont want to take up the jobs provided there.

It more like sell bbt, cisco guard, ambassadors, swabbers, temperature takers, macdonald job.

 

[theMKR]

can you please post topics with some substance?
Pap ibs now so low ability. Only k serve as troll online.

And here is a post with lots of substance claiming a post has no substance.

Horkayyyyy

 

[Why so serious]

a ultra rich country which cannot support minimum wage.
dont make the world laugh at us.

they are already laughing at our handling of covid19

 

[ponpokku]

Eh, I kind of agree with Jamus.

Every tender that G puts out, it gives to the lowest bidder. The lowest bidder needs to make a profit. So the simpliest way to cut cost is manpower.

Also, business also do the same. Got to Pay rental (REITs really driving the rental up), pay taxes, pay for material cost, make a profit. Easiest way again is to squeeze the manpower cost.

Not sure if it’s related to the every $1, only 42cents go to the labour. But the salary is always being sacrificed.

this one taipei already solved. give tender to best bidder not lowest bidder.

best bidder means most plus points on the project within the acceptable budget framework.

lowest bidder may be cheap but lacking tons of necessary enhancements, and these can be more expensive to install later.

public housing in taipei according to the best bidder rule.

and yes, it ish true, in sg about 45% of GDP goes to income niah. look at my post below.

 

[Misuta]

Got 200k sinkies unemployed men stuck in nsf leh. Plug this figure into workforce, what is the rates again?

saf only got 70K personnel including regular, but can say got 200k nsf. and nsf can consider unemployed.

satki logic by jelly quitter.

 

[RAWR!!]

Cause if you look at the data now from MOM June 2019 ~~ of 28K people earning less than 1k, there are a large bracket from 15-24 yrs old, as well as half is from 40s onwards. So unemployment might occur from there~ due to companies reducing hiring of partimers/old timers, handling more work to 1 person. Cause wad WP is saying is a blanket minimum wage for all sgreans regardless of industry or sector or type of work. This will also cause discrimination to hire PR over sgreans. A targetted workfare scheme, which undergoes howver ineffcieint/bureacratic checks, at least ensure the cost is justified. We might instead of helping the intended group, causes more harm by reducing their employability. And this is just 1 aspect of it, wage push inflation may also seep into the small Sole properitoships coy.

If a company can easily reduce headcounts based on wages, then the company is not lean in its operations in the first place. It is only alright for it to reduce headcount in that sense. Frankly speaking, I would think that labour intensive industry are less prone to unemployment. This is how Singapore solves unemployment in its early days by bringing in factories. Again and again MOM quotas are in place.

In another perspective, by focusing too much on employment may not benefit the country as a whole. A recent example is traineeship scheme. It will bring about more damage to the economy in the long run. Unemployment should come about due to lack of jobs and not lack of artificially created jobs via the mean of wage suppression.

There is no need to worry about profit margins of businesses even if government implementation forcefully decreases the profit margin. There will always be business owners willing to sweat it out for that tiny gain as a tiny gain is still a gain.

 

[Baddieko]

pls, go expand your horizon. there are developed countries with no min wage. sweden, switzerland, denmark, norway etc.

https://www.investopedia.com/articl...developed-countries-without-minimum-wages.asp

and you realize SG is one of the rare few of the developed world that have very low unemployment and have seen real income growth over the past decade, while many other developed countries have stagnant or even declining real income even for the middle class?

if min wage so satki, how many developed countries have seen their bottom 20% have a real income growth of 40% over the past decade?

Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/singapo...productivity-decline-spells-out-ruling-partys

3% this figure is kinda exaggerated as well. When we seen as many ah sia kia, elderly, nsf, housewives and gcp not working.

Its more like 20% true unemployment in sg. Gov figures nice to take within 6 months.

 

[Misuta]

3% this figure is kinda exaggerated as well. When we seen as many ah sia kia, elderly, nsf, housewives and gcp not working.

Its more like 20% true unemployment in sg.

don't show your stupidity lah, you know how unemployment is defined not? then other countries true unemployment rate is 40%?

what you're saying is labor force participation rate, which SG is pretty high up too.