minimum wage

A Chinese migrant is making waves with his ideas about the stupidity of the minimum wage.

Expect howls of outrage from labour, especially Darien Fenton over this story.

A Chinese immigrant is campaigning to have fellow migrants paid below the minimum wage.

…

The New Zealand Government’s immigration requirements are flawed because they allow migrants without valuable skills to move to New Zealand, [Easter] Wu said.

And if a migrant does not have the skills to get a job paying at least the minimum wage, they should be happy receiving payment that reflects their competency.

“How much you are worth is how much you get. You got an $8 skill, I pay you $8,” he said.  Read more »

Yesterday travel blogger David Farrar had quite the scoop about the Green party running deceptive ads.

So in summary, the Greens:

1. Misrepresented the minimum wage change
2. Inaccurately stated the minimum wage last week was $13.75
3. Miscalculated the take home pay last week (they were wrong at $13.50 and $13.75)
4. Miscalculated the change in student loan repayments
5. Miscalculated the change in Kiwisaver deductions

This is pretty gross incompetence for a political party with you know staff and MPs. There is nothing difficult about going to the IRD website and using their calculator. Their advertisement is false and misleading and they should withdraw it until corrected.  Read more »

Cactus tweeted this last night

HK minimum wage on a billboard. Around NZ5 bucks twitter.com/CactusKate2/st…

— Cactus Kate (@CactusKate2) February 28, 2013

That is Hong Kong dollars…….. so NZ$4.69 per hour

Looks like the workers are very happy as well all smiling on the billboard.

Simon Bridges should run a series of billboards similar announcing how happy New Zealand workers are to be getting NZ$4.69 an hour.

Hard not to argue with the logic of Adam Carolla when he mocked Obama’s proposals for an increased minimum wage:

The podcast king blasted the president’s rhetoric on the issue, reminding listeners most minimum wage jobs are meant for employees getting their first taste of economic realities.

Minimum-wage jobs are the ones you’re supposed to have in high school and you’re supposed to pass through them. The idea is — I worked at McDonald’s when I was 16. The whole idea isn’t let’s make Adam Carolla comfortable working at McDonald’s. I was like, ‘I’m getting $2.43 a hour. This place sucks ass. I want out of here as fast as I can possibly do it.’

He also argued people working minimum wage jobs should think twice before starting a family, a subject no politician would ever explore.

And you certainly aren’t supposed to have two fucking kids when you’re making Minimum Wage. It’s not responsible; it’s not responsible to the kids you’re trying to raise; and it’s not responsible to the community they live in because you’re not — you’re not paying your fair share.

He goes even further:

But according to Carolla, the author of “Not Taco Bell Material,” earning a minimum wage with two kids is a sign of bar parenting.

“And jumping down to minimum wage by the way, speaking of that — and this is another part of good parenting — the best parenting of all is not shitting out the kids when you can’t afford the kids,” Carolla said. “Again, all these speeches that all these politicians make, right and left — they discuss the problem. Basically, what they’re discussing is how to take a ship that’s capsized and drain it and get it back up. But they never discuss what capsizes the ship, which is the only fucking discussion they should be having — is ballast-oriented: How did it get capsized? Not how do we un-capsize it.”

Matt McCarten whines about the “living wage”:

When I entered the workforce in 1980, a Kiwi worker was paid the same as an Australian for a similar job. Now our average wage is 20 per cent less in real terms. Interestingly, our minimum wage of $13.50 is 30 per cent less. Australia’s minimum, in our money, is $20.35. Even adjusting for their living costs, it’s $16.28 – $110 more a week for a full-time worker.  Read more »

Stuff was jumping on the bandwagon today with the “living wage” issue currently being pumped by the Herald and assorted unions and leftwing causes.

They decided to run one of their online surveys. This was the result a short time ago:

Read more »

Labour has as one of its core policies that they will lift the minimum wage. The green taliban support that as well and if they have their way would lift it even higher.

Perennially the politicians of the left clamour for the lifting of the minimum wage claiming that it will lift workers out of poverty…of course they ignore the fact that the minimum wage is far higher now than it used to be and yet the workers at that level are still poor relatively. They are allowed to get away with it because right thinking politicians have poorly thought out rebuttals for the [il]logic of the left.

Worse still National had Kate Wilkinson as labour minister for a time, and she was overly sympathetic to union demands.

The same call is being made in the US to lift the minimum wage and Evan Soltas at Bloomberg says that must be resisted…and goes further and proposes an alternative to the minium wage…an extension of the modification of our Working for Families, but with much more aggressive abatement regime.

Liberal arguments for increasing the minimum wage have a fundamental flaw: They restrict the set of policy choices to either a minimum wage increase or doing nothing. That means they overlook the single most important federal policy for the poor: the Earned Income Tax Credit.

The EITC is a measure in the federal tax code to support the living standards of the poor without creating a “welfare trap” by diminishing the incentive to work. Economists widely consider the credit a success for reducing poverty while increasing employment.  Read more »

Things appear to be looking up in Christchurch…businesses are reporting that there is no one to fill vacancies for jobs:

Some of Christchurch’s biggest employers are calling for more unskilled immigrants to be allowed into New Zealand to fill job vacancies.

While the city calls for tradesmen, engineers and management-level workers as the rebuild gets into full swing, some businesses say there is a similar need for those willing to do low-paid, unskilled work.

Trish Paterson, recruitment manager for Christchurch-based employment agency Ryan Recruitment, said many local companies were struggling to fill positions that required no qualifications or skills that can be learned on the job.

“It’s not so much that [jobs] are not available, but in a lot of cases they are paying minimum wage and there are other employers paying more, even if it is only 50c per hour, people will move jobs for that,” she said.

The company was even struggling to find people to stand with Stop/Go signs to manage traffic at road works.

Employers needed to adjust their expectations, she said.

“The old attitude ‘if they want the job they have to fit in with us’ is now unrealistic.

“Quite often it is about thinking outside the square . . . taking a more lateral approach and sourcing people that can be trained to do the job, perhaps people they would not have considered in the past.”

Most importantly, Paterson believed, Christchurch needed to bring in more immigrants.

Right so it appears that there are no unemployed at all left in Christchurch…I wonder what the stats say?  Read more »

So if the Sallies want us to pay more taxes who the fuck do they expect to get their donations from?

Religious lobby groups really piss me off.

The middle class will have to pay more for their daily espresso and higher taxes if New Zealand is to become a more equal society, the Salvation Army says.

Major Campbell Roberts, who heads the army’s social policy unit, said middle-class New Zealanders gained from the country’s low minimum wage of just $13.50 an hour every time they bought a coffee from a low-paid cafe worker.

“Many of the lowest wages are in service sectors and benefit high-income people,” he said.

“The minimum wage should be raised to be commensurate with Australian levels for the lowest-paid work. The Government should budget for higher minimum wages and be upfront that the extra costs will be met from higher taxes and that high-and middle-income earners should expect to pay a little more for their espresso coffees.”

Perhaps if we hadn’t developed a nation of bludgers we wouldn’t be in this predicament.

Surely he jests (Paid Content at NBR):

An Auckland immigration consultant expects to see more working holiday schemes after the government signed a deal with the Philippines today.

Philippines president Benigno Aquino was in New Zealand with a number of senior colleagues and a business delegation of 70 people.

Prime Minister John Key and Mr Aquino met to discuss the growing relationship between the two countries and later witnessed the signing of the new agreement.

Under the scheme, 100 Philippines’ residents between the ages of 18 and 30 will be granted temporary visas for a year-long stay in New Zealand.

They will be able to take up work but cannot stay with the same employer for more than three months.

Likewise, 100 New Zealanders will be able to travel to the Philippines every year under the same conditions.

I can understand 100 Philippines’ residents wanting to come here. Just look at the income figures from there.

Median Hourly Rate by Job – Country: Philippines (Philippines)

The current exchange rate between the Philippines Peso and the New Zealand Dollar  shows that 1PHP=0.0297.

So the median hourly rate for a nurse in the Philippines is $5.94 and for a highly paid IT Consultant (like Lynn Prentice) they would get $15 per hour. Sheesh even bludgers in New Zealand get more as a base benefit for sitting on their arses.

Our minimum wage laws require people to be paid $13.50 per hour and Labour and the Greens want that increased to $15 per hour which they describe as a “living wage”. Clearly the teeming millions in the Philippines find that a living wage is so much less than what our fat cat politicians believe to be the case.

I’ll lay money on the table right now that there will be one way traffic in this exchange system with the Philippines. They will be coming here but not a single Kiwi will take up the challenge of working for those wage rates in the Philippines.

Personally I’d like to see far more Philippines residents coming here to work, but I wish our politicians would be honest about it.

Instead of a silly limit of 100 people, let’s let in thousands, even at our minimum wage they are earning many time more than they are capable of earning in the Philippines. It is a win, win for the country. We get hordes of willing and capable workers at a better price than our own workforce…and the workers from the Philippines get to earn many thousands more working here than they could ever dream of in the Philippines.

Of course the unions will complain…and the left wing politicians…but then they have just proved to us all that you can easily live on $2.25 per day. Even at Philippine wage rates that is double for just one hours work, should be plenty enough.

Bear in mind also that the Philippines has the highest pay rates in Asia…something that is causing consternation amongst their employers who are struggling to compete with Vietnam, Cambodia and China.

Perhaps DPF could negotiate a better scheme while he is sunning himself in Vietnam and Cambodia?