4 ms·

Who/what says minimum wages are a good thing? Take Europe. Half the countries have minimum wage laws and half do not. Those that do (Belgium, Netherlands, Brita

Who/what says minimum wages are a good thing? Take Europe. Half the countries have minimum wage laws and half do not. Those that do (Belgium, Netherlands, Britain, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Luxembourg) have much higher unemployment rates than those that don't (Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Austria, Germany, Italy, Switzerland). As for the U.S., minimum wage laws aren't typically used to increase the standard of living... they're used to curry favor with constituents and, therefore, their vote. Targeting the 1% by implementing a pay "ceiling" and rewarding the 99% by raising the pay "floor" would lead to nothing more than our society being put in a sort of "economic solitary confinement" (of stagnation, inefficiency, etc.). See USSR.

tzs 12y ago
You've listed 18 countries in your two halves of Europe. The EU has 28 countries [1], and including sovereign states that are not part of the EU, there are 41 [2]. How did you decide what small subset of these to include in your comparison? Here are a couple of lists that may be useful if you wanted to to a more complete comparison. Unemployment in sovereign states of Europe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Europe_by_unemployment_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eur... Minimum wages in sovereign states of Europe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Europe_by_minimum_wage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eur... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_state_of_the_European_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_state_of_the_European_Un... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Europe_by_GDP_(nominal) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eur...
- jetfighter 12y ago
  My apologies. I should have said "Western" Europe in my post.

tzs 12y ago

You've listed 18 countries in your two halves of Europe. The EU has 28 countries [1], and including sovereign states that are not part of the EU, there are 41 [2]. How did you decide what small subset of these to include in your comparison? Here are a couple of lists that may be useful if you wanted to to a more complete comparison. Unemployment in sovereign states of Europe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Europe_by_unemployment_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eur... Minimum wages in sovereign states of Europe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Europe_by_minimum_wage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eur... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_state_of_the_European_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_state_of_the_European_Un... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Europe_by_GDP_(nominal) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eur...

jetfighter 12y ago
My apologies. I should have said "Western" Europe in my post.