Will minimum wage laws work here?

[cal127]

The fearmonger is real by ruling party. They trying to protect companies hiring low wage workers. But they tell u it increase unemployment.

This policy works in europe and US.

Sg has high cost of living still use cheap labour. The bosses and govt are v greedy here.

Its open secret they just want to keep the status quo. Realistically we're not talking about an outright increase. The exception is for a gain in skills or ability for an existing worker, thus justifying a comparable wage increase. That is usually incremental and does not typically distort the labor market. If you are trying to support a family on a fast-food job, you are likely going to struggle. Those jobs, and most other so called minimum wage jobs are meant to be part-time and typically for single teenagers, retirees, or those wishing to work part-time. Hence the lack of benefits or other generous perks. Those two will usually get conflated.

 

[notical]

MNC relies on this kind of labour way more than SMEs. It would bring the upper class down if their profit margins decrease from minimum wage.

if you had seen the MNC i was in before i got retrenched...

their labour mostly from "foreign talents".

 

[Libbis]

Alr told ts dun anyhow say. Ts is wrong.

 

[ponpokku]

seems to be two issues. if the doors are wide open, we are asking every Singaporeans to compete in terms of wages with every 3rd world villager in the world. the doors should have a doorman who very closely scrutinise each and every visitor. why should you let the monkey in when you have no lack of monkeys locally?

once that is achieved, then minimum wages is implemented for Singaporeans to safeguard the low wage workers against skyrocketing cost of living.

there are many ways to go about it. it's just whether the Singaporean government care enough for the people to implement them. Set a 10% foreigner quota, irregardless of WP, SP or EP. Can tweak this for labour intensive industries such as construction/shipbuilding.

Either way, it doesnt make sense to have 2 million foreigners when we have a 3% unemployment rate.

ish only 1 issue. sinkie 1st or FT first.

u look at PMET, why $3500 bar for FTs? thats to lvl the ground so that sinkie remain competitive. if u no set the $3500 bar, really every ah mao ah gou come and chiong sinkies. and even so, still got **** coys fake salary to shortcut.

min wage to cover FWs ish the same thing. lvl the ground for that 10% sinkies. u dun set the bar, any FW can come and chiong sinkies, the same idea.

3% unemployment ish actually very very low. 1st world country, anything under 5% ish low and considered very good economic perf. so this ish not an issue. the issue ish other things like productivity, ie how much GDP produced per hr of work. and salary to GDP ratio, how much % of GDP ish employee income.

if u got high GDP per capita but ur avg working hours sibeh long, then productivity no good. bring in more cheap FT/FW cheong overall GDP numbers oso no use. becos put under microscope, everyone's productivity dropped. there will come to a break even point or even negative point, becos we have to invest in infra to house these FT/FW. it can be counter productive. in economics it ish called diminishing returns.

if u got high GDP per capita but only a small fraction of it goes to wages, that means the GDP never translate to wealth and better lives for the ppl. u are running a nation of slaves with the wealth concentrate in a small number of ppl.

 

[bakuten]

The danger of inflation is fast-rising wages, sure, but not as fast as prices intoduced by rent-seekers. You are just choosing whose pocket to chip in.

i must correct you here.

the danger of inflation is suppressed interest rates....wage levels is just a symptom.

 

[coolnhappy]

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 >

The problem is that they're not going to increase per bowl price by just $0.033. It's more likely to be 20 or even 50 cents.

 

[liteScribble]

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

im not a scholar or what.. but im sure we could fund UBI from other resources that we have.

 

[traderF35]

how is it related?

first you say wah later cost of living go up, then 9% gst ppl kpkb

problem is whether cost of living go up or not, still 9% gst.

so what you talking?

there are 101 ways to go about it. I'm not paid to give solutions. If you want, please look for your million dollar minister. If you want me to be charitable, and help with suggestions/solutions, I really dont mind if he's just earning say $100k per annum. Ask me to give suggestions/solutions to help million dollar ministers justify their obscene amount they are earning? No thanks.

Ask them? JT? She's busy fighting the FW cases don't disrupt her minimum wage.
In reality no way to force employer pay minimum wage other than fines and jails. Gov can help maybe by supplementing the wages of the lowly paid. The money come from 9% GST. This is more sustainable. That's the link. No blank cheque.

 

[Why so serious]

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

so much resistance when we are discussing to help the lower ses workers, but when comes to higher management positions, the pay can only go through the roof.

look at all the CEOs' pay check since the last financial crisis.

 

[theMKR]

im not a scholar or what.. but im sure we could fund UBI from other resources that we have.

what other resources?

the only resources govt have is land.

which to increase its value, is to import more population which the citizens is against it.

and even land, we dun have a lot left.....

want UBI? need to convert to citizen in oil-rich countries lor....

 

[Xeservico]

if you had seen the MNC i was in before i got retrenched...

their labour mostly from "foreign talents".

You saw a very small part of the MNC leh, a cog in the machine.

 

[theMKR]

so much resistance when we are discussing to help the lower ses workers, but when comes to higher management positions, the pay can only go through the roof.

look at all the CEOs' pay check since the last financial crisis.

https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/711x474/https://blogs-images.forbes.com/jessecolombo/files/2019/08/CEOToWorkerPayRatio.jpg?
width=960

invalid comparison.....

we did not help CEO get high pay, they worked for it themselves.

 

[bakuten]

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??

friend....what money come from maybe what if something? very easy to anyhow pull figures out of the air

govt coffers is 1 big account. they don't allocate money based on where the money was taxed from.

every single cent inside there comes from us....1 way or another.

workfare already in place....means some tax monies already allocated into this. meaning everybody already chipping in to help the lower wage workers in SG.

but now you have people wanting employers to tank all the damage themselves while arguing against workfare because(socializing costs and privatizing profits argument).

employers are paying market price for the labor....no force was used on the employee to take up the job.

by arguing for minimum wage. you are employing force on the employer to pay their employees more for YOUR OWN BELIEF while doing NOTHING on your own part.

i'll admit that even workfare relies on taxation(force). but at least that allocation of tax money is agreeable with me.....so i don't mind that scheme at all.



so the best thing you all(pro minimum wage people) can do....is to lead the way....and pledge a portion of your salary to help the low wage workers that you CLAIM to care so much for.

you don't even need a law to do that....you can just ownself go donate to some auntie clearing up tables since you so FIRMLY BELIEF IN your cause right?

otherwise all this is just virtue signalling.

empty talk....only want others to help fund your own beliefs.

 

[8zaoyu]

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.

You are correct, more likely for those elderlies who have no more Basic Retirement Income to draw down and living in lower value public flats. They derive records from the CPF and Inland Revenue Authority

 

[Ubi-Warrior]

It's Capitalism.. Someone needs to be paying them ... i can assure you 100% if we will to increase our full time cleaner from $900-$1300 that's $400 more for each cleaner.. if i have 40 cleaners that $16.000 more overhead... and u think the cleaning company are willing to absorb them.. what about cpf contribution to them.. ?

Sometime you cannot just look at the overall pictures..

Folk love talking about other peoples pay and saying how low it should be....

Sent from An Alternative Viewpoint On Life using GAGT

 

[Ubi-Warrior]

invalid comparison.....

we did not help CEO get high pay, they worked for it themselves.

Hahahahahahha.....

No really ...hahahahahahaha

Sent from An Alternative Viewpoint On Life using GAGT

 

[Poomer]

ish only 1 issue. sinkie 1st or FT first.

u look at PMET, why $3500 bar for FTs? thats to lvl the ground so that sinkie remain competitive. if u no set the $3500 bar, really every ah mao ah gou come and chiong sinkies. and even so, still got **** coys fake salary to shortcut.

min wage to cover FWs ish the same thing. lvl the ground for that 10% sinkies. u dun set the bar, any FW can come and chiong sinkies, the same idea.

3% unemployment ish actually very very low. 1st world country, anything under 5% ish low and considered very good economic perf. so this ish not an issue. the issue ish other things like productivity, ie how much GDP produced per hr of work. and salary to GDP ratio, how much % of GDP ish employee income.

if u got high GDP per capita but ur avg working hours sibeh long, then productivity no good. bring in more cheap FT/FW cheong overall GDP numbers oso no use. becos put under microscope, everyone's productivity dropped. there will come to a break even point or even negative point, becos we have to invest in infra to house these FT/FW. it can be counter productive. in economics it ish called diminishing returns.

if u got high GDP per capita but only a small fraction of it goes to wages, that means the GDP never translate to wealth and better lives for the ppl. u are running a nation of slaves with the wealth concentrate in a small number of ppl.

I'm pretty much in agreement in above ah. But as I explained, there is really no point in setting a minimum wage when the main benefactors are foreign workers. Yet a minimum wage if implement correctly can benefit low income Singaporeans. It's just about tweaking the policy.

 

[Why so serious]

invalid comparison.....

we did not help CEO get high pay, they worked for it themselves.

incorrect. their workers work hard to bring in the profits for him/her.

 

[bakuten]

Jamus is a proper economist with good credentials while you are just some unknown person voicing your armchair theories. You say Jamus wrong no one will hieu you lor.

not taking anything away from MP Jamus.

but there are alot of very prominent Austrian school/Chicago school economists who have compelling arguments against minimum wage and governmental intervention in the free market as well.

so....your point being?

 

[Poomer]

friend....what money come from maybe what if something? very easy to anyhow pull figures out of the air

govt coffers is 1 big account. they don't allocate money based on where the money was taxed from.

every single cent inside there comes from us....1 way or another.

workfare already in place....means some tax monies already allocated into this. meaning everybody already chipping in to help the lower wage workers in SG.

but now you have people wanting employers to tank all the damage themselves while arguing against workfare because(socializing costs and privatizing profits argument).

employers are paying market price for the labor....no force was used on the employee to take up the job.

by arguing for minimum wage. you are employing force on the employer to pay their employees more for YOUR OWN BELIEF while doing NOTHING on your own part.

i'll admit that even workfare relies on taxation(force). but at least that allocation of tax money is agreeable with me.....so i don't mind that scheme at all.

so the best thing you all(pro minimum wage people) can do....is to lead the way....and pledge a portion of your salary to help the low wage workers that you care so much for.

you don't need a law to do that....you can just ownself go donate to some auntie clearing up tables since you so FIRMLY BELIEF IN your cause right?

otherwise all this is just virtue signalling.

empty talk....only want others to help fund your own beliefs.

Question is market price fair? If there were 1 million less foreigners, wouldnt the market price shift accordingly? You are right that nobody force the employee to take the job. But i believe the key point you are missing here is that we are competing with every third world village in a 5000 km radius.