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Why is the minimum wage not discussed? Why is the default political option to increase the minimum wage? Honestly I can’t answer these questions but I can put my case forward for the abolishing of the minimum wage after brexit.
While the UK is in the EU I agree with a minimum wage because it’s essential to protect native workers from being undercut from EU citizens coming to our country nevertheless subsequently post leaving the EU we can control our borders and determine who comes into the country which means we can abolish the minimum wage as undercutting won’t be a consern succeeding brexit as we as a country will have total migration power.
If an increase to the minimum wage increases wages in general then why don’t we increase it to £50? £100? £1m? Maybe because it doesn’t work in the way socialists tells you. The minimum wage is meant to insulate employees from exploitation however all the minimum wage has succeeded in doing is create a maximum wage for retail and fast food jobs rather than giving people wages based on their work effort, having competition between employees to fully encourage hard work and earning things rather than a government handed fixed rate.
The minimum wage may seem compassionate by making a worker earn more at minimum however this fails to live up to scrutiny because as the minimum wage is increased there is an increase in uninployment and a decrease in GDP. Any sensible economist will tell you exactly that and the thing that befuddles me is that no one seems to talk or have concern about these issues. Politicians seem to willingly ignore the facts staring them in the eyes as they want to feel good rather than do good.
There are six countries with absolutely no minimum wage and ALL of them have better GDP per capita than the UK and not by a few thousand but by an incredibly astonishing margin. The 6 countries GDP per capita is as follows, Sweden – £42,679, Singapore – £46,090, Norway – £60,298, Denmark – £44,967, Switzerland – £64,039, Iceland – £55,947, this is compared to the UK’s £31,721 per capita. What all these 6 countries have in common is that they have no minimum wage, have low regulation on business and many of which have very low corporation tax. These neo-liberal economic policies work and we need the next PM to endorse those by firstly abolishing the minimum wage.
Nick Mitchell (Fife, Scotland)
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