Minimum Wage Increases Fail To Inspire

The government has announced that the minimum wage will increase 50c from April 1, taking it from $14.75 to $15.25. 

Having risen every year since 2009, when it was just $12.50 an hour, the minimum wage still remains far below what some people have been campaigning for. The Living Wage movement, for example, believes $19.80 is an hourly wage that is high enough to maintain a normal standard of living. 

Michael Woodhouse, Workplace Relations and Safety minister, told Critic that “with such low inflation as we have in New Zealand right now, it would be easy for government to simply ignore the minimum wage issue, but we felt we could help.”

That 50c increase will total $20 extra pay per week for full time employees who are paid the minimum wage, which is equivalent to $1000 a year. Woodhouse said he would “defy anyone who says the increase is just a drop in the ocean… [The amount] matters to them doesn’t it?”

Richard Wagstaff, president of the Council of Trade Unions (CTU) said, “In 2009 working people were campaigning for a minimum wage of $15. It’s taken seven years to get to $15.25. $15 was a fair minimum wage in 2009, it’s not a fair wage in 2016.” The CTU is calling on employers to pay working people the living wage of $19.80, after claiming that $15.25 is barely “enough to exist on,” according to their media release. 

The Labour Party policy is to see the minimum wage increased to $16.50 and they want to give the living wage [$19.80] only to the core public sector. 

David Clark, MP for North Dunedin, said, “if you shifted overnight to $19.80 there is no doubt in my mind that would send some companies to the wall.” What he wants to see is the “government mapping out a path of increases that are sustainable but also progressive.”

Clark added, “Currently, New Zealand has one in four children living in poverty, and a large proportion of those are in families with working parents and we have an extraordinary amount of people with health issues as a result. Low wages in New Zealand cause poverty and the taxpayer picks up the bill through healthcare for entirely preventable diseases.”  

This article first appeared in Issue 2, 2016.
Posted 10:44am Sunday 6th March 2016 by Joe Higham.