Will minimum wage laws work here?

[pohw0008]

To be workfare = gov pay.. where the money from maybe from top income tax bracket.. is this substanable?

Min wage = coy pay... Money will be from higher price consumer..

So which part are unwilling to pay are you referring to??

Workfare = everybody chip in abit to topup low wage earner salary.

Min wage = companies forkout extra money above market rate.

Ppl calling for min wage basically unwilling to chip in abit for their own belief in paying low wage workers more.

They just want to virtue signal....ask somebody else to pay for their own beliefs. Shows u how much heart they really have for the low wage earner.

All talk but no action.

 

[tamago_]

Let's do something radical n capped the profit of companies at certain percentage..The rest of it goes to staff wages.

This should minimize rich b poor gap. The rich still able to earn money based on revenue n the poor n middle classes will also share the money .

That is similar to government regulation of natural monopolies, which caps its rate of return, with excess channeled to a Development Fund for high-cost infrastructural investments like upgrades to the power grid etc. What we call Scheme of Control. The actual outcome was that, most of these monopolies would purposely increase its costs and expend it in-house to ensure that the level of return stays below the cap, so it does not need to contribute anything. It would be interesting to apply this to private firms and see some creative accounting going on.

Also, let’s say they were to expend it on a one-off bonus. Who do you think would get the highest bonus? Not trying to diss you, but there are really no easy answers.

 

[NTB2DO]

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.

Cleaners upskill to take up better paid job, then who be cleaners?

Just keep relying FWs ? Bearing in mind that we are able to do that only because we are more economically advanced than the FW supplier countries, ie we can use higher wages to lure the FWs to come and work for us.

But are you sure that these countries will remain undeveloped forever such that wages here in SG will perpetually be significantly higher, that we can keep capitalising on the wages difference to enjoy cheap FWs?

And is this the right way (exploiting the wages disparity between third world countries and ours) to go for, even in the long term?

 

[theMKR]

I think min wage aint going to help.. look at the countries that have min wage..

We need to look into something more radical like UBI type program where the money comes out from govt. I honestly rather pay more taxes than see the price of coffee increase.

When the govt increase taxes, the not so well to do might not be as affected as the middle and upper class. At the same time coffee remains the same price so they should have more purchasing power.

And sorry to all the andy lau and jeff benzos here.. but we need to tax the whales a hella a lot more.

UbI only works if the country has natural resources....

 

[wwenze]

UbI only works if the country has natural resources....

Singapore has a good resource of free labor...

 

[Poomer]

This just means that the benefits of the lower costs are passed on to someone. Guess who.

Just because cost savings were not passed on to consumers doesn't mean that the inverse has to follow suit. Increased costs can still be passed on to consumers. Why would these companies not want to pass on the costs, unless there are incentives for them not to do so?

Indeed, but a certain political party cannot claim they keep cost of living low if they allow companies to pass the buck.

 

[sunzoner]

It will only benefit you if you are a cleaner or making $1000 a month. It actually DOES NOT benefit most of us because we will be paying higher price for products. Imagine wanton mee costing $10. I dont understand why TS is so stoopig?

What $10?

Example
Food stall assistant Total Wages : 1,200
Min Wage: 1,300
Increase by $100. What is the impact to consumer?

Assume 1: food court stall hire 1 assistant. Cost increase = $100
Assume 2: Staff sells 100 bowls of food per day = 3,000 bowls per month (100 X 30)
This works out to $0.033 per bowl (100 / 3,000)
Assume 3: Eat one bowl per meal per day. $2.91 per month (0.033 X 3 X 30)
Median wage for Singapore: $4,563
Impact of increase to Singapore worker: Less than 0.01%(2.91 / 4,563)

MOM
<Source: https://stats.mom.gov.sg/Pages/Occupational-Wages-Tables2019.aspx >

Median income
2019: 4,563
<source: https://stats.mom.gov.sg/Pages/Income-Summary-Table.aspx >

 

[rbtr8r]

why do u need to attend course to be cleaner?

it's to maintain these so-called training schools...

 

[NTB2DO]

Seriously, unless a company relies (and capitalises) solely on low wage workers to make money, paying their lowest-wage (those earning below min-wages level) a few hundred more each is unlikely to bankrupt the company. And if a company can only rely on cheap labours to profit, I don't know if such company can remain viable in the long run.. Cos I'm not seeing much value-add in it.

 

[PlayerX]

What $10?

Example
Food stall assistant Total Wages : 1,200
Min Wage: 1,300
Increase by $100. What is the impact to consumer?

Assume 1: food court stall hire 1 assistant. Cost increase = $100
Assume 2: Staff sells 100 bowls of food per day = 3,000 bowls per month (100 X 30)
This works out to $0.033 per bowl (100 / 3,000)
Assume 3: Eat one bowl per meal per day. $2.91 per month (0.033 X 3 X 30)
Median wage for Singapore: $4,563
Impact of increase to Singapore worker: Less than 0.01%(2.91 / 4,563)

MOM
<Source: https://stats.mom.gov.sg/Pages/Occupational-Wages-Tables2019.aspx >

Median income
2019: 4,563
<source: https://stats.mom.gov.sg/Pages/Income-Summary-Table.aspx >

Swee calculus!

 

[1.koln]

I think it is very viable for Singapore companies to rely on cheap labour

There is so many foreign workers accepting less pay than Singaporean counterparts

Many of them relied on cheap labour for decades and Singapore is only 55 years old

 

[wwenze]

What do you call a country where labor consists of less than 10% of price?

A: The best country to be born meritocratic in

 

[ponpokku]

the main beneficiary is the 10% lower income group Singaporeans and you want to give half a million foreign maids and construction workers the same benefit?

it's only a benefit if the foreigners gets employed. nothing at all if they gets removed.

u dun include them, u only put sinkie in worse uncompetitive position and result in MORE foreigners coming in to take that 10% sinkie job.

really ish any monkey can come here and pick up low lvl jobs.

u make that 10% locals more expensive, but employers continue to exploit the low cost FW loophole, then whats the point? defeats the purpose altogether.

 

[ponpokku]

Right now Singapore is actually using the Workforce Income Supplement Scheme (WIS) which goes around the tune of about 300 million/year for over 300k low income Singaporeans aged 35 years and above. Jamus is just arguing for businesses to foot the bill instead of the government to do so.

ish not govt but everyone else footing the bill. invisible tax.

where the govt money comes from? lol.

 

[NTB2DO]

Those folks who are paid $1200 to $1500, also gets paid
$134 (Cash)
$199 (CPF)

If it's an old folk, the person also can get money from the government via the Silver Support. His pay must not be more than $1100.
He can get up to $750 a quarter, depending on where he stays.


Via SEC scheme.
Employers for these old folks with salaries above are subsidised $132 to $165 a month.

You are aware that govt supports funds come from the taxpayers right?

And it's precisely because the below-minimum wages earners' income was too low for them to survive that taxpayers need to fork out, via various govt assistance schemes (eg silver support) to help these below-min-wage earners make ends meet.

No wonder bosses disagree: Why make bosses pay their low wage workers more - when they can make taxpayers pay for the shortfall?

 

[sharpsnapper]

Those folks who are paid $1200 to $1500, also gets paid
$134 (Cash)
$199 (CPF)

If it's an old folk, the person also can get money from the government via the Silver Support. His pay must not be more than $1100.
He can get up to $750 a quarter, depending on where he stays.


Via SEC scheme.
Employers for these old folks with salaries above are subsidised $132 to $165 a month.

Silver Support Scheme is $600 per quarter. There are conditions to it, living in smaller flats, little to no income, little family support etc. This means only the poorer seniors will get it.

 

[KPO_SAHM]

Is there a minimum wages for MP, Pm and president?

 

[cal127]

so fast show his true colors alr.

minimum wage is not to give the lower paid employees more money or higher salaries, but to ensure that they are a paid a fair wage

this is recognized by everyone who is talking for or against minimum wage.

the PAP has talked and discussed minimum wages before in parliament and even the newspapers has discussed about it before.

but there has NEVER been any discussion about, if the "cost" of increasing wages should be transferred to the consumer, or anyone besides the employer - simply because it should never be a question about WHO TO TRANSFER THE COST TO

what minimum wage does is to make it illegal to pay your employees a wage that does not allow them to live properly

this is why minimum wage is called minimum wage. it is the lowest amount that an employee can pay their workers.

dun come talk about "increasing costs" simply because if you are paying your employees minimum or above minimum wage, your costs would not have increased at all!

if you are paying your employees below minimum wage, then YOU need to pay your employees more.

even the PAP is able to recognise this and they themselves have stated that singapore does not have minimum wage because it would be set so low that it would be make setting a minimum redundant!

source https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/wages/minimum-wages/definition/WCMS_439072/lang--en/index.htm

https://www.todayonline.com/big-read/perennial-debate-singapore-minimum-wage

https://www.pap.org.sg/news/ge2020-news/why-no-minimum-wage/

Absolute rubbish esp. the last statement. Its not redundant. The argument against minimum wage is not only costs but how you derive it. You have to set the conditions first for minimum wage to work. The only realistic good way to increase worker wages is to increase worker productivity. One way to do that is increased capitalization, so that workers can use more sophisticated machines to improve their individual productivity. Another is to improve worker skills, so that workers can more effectively use existing machinery. Higher education isn't the way to provide that; we don't need more lawyers and MBAs, we need more skilled tradesmen. That means more shop classes in high schools and more trade schools. But, for reasons having to do with pride - the first deadly sin - we won't do that. Stuff that gets your hands dirty is so blue-collar and are delegated to foreign workers. Mindset needs to change.

The problem is that a worker whose productivity is, say, $9 an hour does not magically rise in productivity to $12 an hour (in inflation-adjusted dollars; an important point) just because he is subsidized. So now an additional $12 are chasing $9 worth of increased production. Yeah, that's inflationary. The market will inflate until $12 purchases what $9 used to.

Meanwhile, in the short term, there is disruption. In the long term, fixed incomes and savings become less valuable.

If the subsidy is not paid for by increased revenues, which seems unlikely given recent our tax-and-spend policies and fiscal history, there is also the matter that, one way or another, the govt is simply printing the money. The money supply will have to expand make $12 equivalent to what $9 was before the subsidy.

Of course, inflations shifts everyone into a higher tax bracket, but I doubt that will increase nominal revenues enough to pay for the subsidy. If there is a serious attempt to actually pay for it, this will mean raising rates as well. This means the rich will be purchasing fewer goods, which will reduce the inflationary pressure significantly. It will also introduce all the deadweight normally associated with higher and more progressive taxes, or more likely in our case, hidden taxes. Higher COEs, stamp duty etc. In particular, there will be less savings by the upper middle class and thus less capital available for economic growth.

 

[Slacking1977]

From a consumer point of view: minimum wage wont be popular . Nobody wants cost of living to increase.

From a morale point of view :
Minimum wage is good. There's a lot of ppl underpaid . Company exploting it . Income gap.. etc

And whether it translate to more jobs for local . Its all depends on how much it increase.
Strangely some ppl willingly to pay $17-$20 for ppl ( u see local picking up this job) to clean their house but against it to pay cleaner another $200 more per month.

 

[yihao93]

so fast show his true colors alr.

minimum wage is not to give the lower paid employees more money or higher salaries, but to ensure that they are a paid a fair wage

this is recognized by everyone who is talking for or against minimum wage.

the PAP has talked and discussed minimum wages before in parliament and even the newspapers has discussed about it before.

but there has NEVER been any discussion about, if the "cost" of increasing wages should be transferred to the consumer, or anyone besides the employer - simply because it should never be a question about WHO TO TRANSFER THE COST TO

what minimum wage does is to make it illegal to pay your employees a wage that does not allow them to live properly

this is why minimum wage is called minimum wage. it is the lowest amount that an employee can pay their workers.

dun come talk about "increasing costs" simply because if you are paying your employees minimum or above minimum wage, your costs would not have increased at all!

if you are paying your employees below minimum wage, then YOU need to pay your employees more.

even the PAP is able to recognise this and they themselves have stated that singapore does not have minimum wage because it would be set so low that it would be make setting a minimum redundant!

source https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/wages/minimum-wages/definition/WCMS_439072/lang--en/index.htm

https://www.todayonline.com/big-read/perennial-debate-singapore-minimum-wage

https://www.pap.org.sg/news/ge2020-news/why-no-minimum-wage/

What ur credentials? Post ur cv here for us to see