"How low can you get: the minimum wage scam"

[applegrove]

How low can you get: the minimum wage scam

by Heidi Moore at the Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/20/minimum-wage-scam

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What the minimum wage debate seems to be missing … is the dialogue that focuses on benefits as the missing element of compensation rather than higher pay. The minimum wage debate is misdirected – among both the workers demanding higher wages and the politicians struggling to determine the minimum wage. Simply put, the problem is not wages: it's total compensation – that is, wages and benefits.

Where we deviate from the norm is on directly-paid benefits: only 9% of US wages are paid out in the form of benefits, compared to a 16.2% average for the 30 countries surveyed by the BLS. We're 29th out of 30. That puts us below developing countries like Brazil and Estonia, and far behind developed nations like Japan – which has very similar minimum and manufacturing wages.

The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics employee benefit survey illuminates how minimum-wage workers make just enough money to survive, but nothing more. Just over a tenth of low-paid workers participated in any kind of healthcare benefits, for instance, and roughly the same amount had life insurance or participated in any kind of retirement plan. One-fifth took sick leave, and only 39% took any kind of vacation.

It's also more expensive to be poor than it is to be middle-class or rich. If low-wage workers do want to have healthcare, they pay more, relative to their salaries, for medical care premiums. Obamacare is supposed to reverse this, but implementation has been held up.



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