Minimum Wage, Minimum Effort

Wage-parity freaks are running a race to the bottom:

Luxembourg, which has by far the highest per capita income in the EU, also has the highest minimum wage. But the country also has the highest percentage of workers having to live on that minimum wage. In some other countries which do have minimum wages, they mark little more than a lower ceiling of workers' payment, with just around 1% of the workforce being on minimum wage.

It might be twice as high, but 11 times as many French workers are stuck at the minimum wage as they are in the U.S. Hint: when you try to divert attention from the lack of growth by discussing abstractions of relative purchasing power vs. income, you’re missing the fact that one never hears of economists getting stoked about the future poverty reducing potential of “Purchasing Power Parity” when there is little in the way basic growth. This is the detritus of decades of micromanagement.

"Ever since the introduction of the 35-hour week, we've heard discussion about purchasing power, not about salaries," Sarkozy said — rebuffing the business leaders' frequent retort that purchasing power is mostly an old union chestnut to justify demands for pay hikes. "Explaining there's no problem of purchasing power in France is trying to pull the public's leg...

- Shukran to überchav Georges who has the
stomach to dig through the confusion at Euractiv.com.