Hardly any recent economic-policy topic has aroused so much controversy as the introduction of a general minimum wage in Germany. The insistence that full-time employment must be rewarded by a socially acceptable income appeals at first glance to a general sense of justice, but it also contains considerable risks that run contrary to this sense of justice. Since wages determine labour costs, job losses are likely in today’s low wage sector. These losses can arise either direct (through rationalisation) or indirect (through lowered price competitiveness of domestic producers). Correspondingly, also the goal of increasing aggregate demand is not achieved, as a rule, by the introduction of minimum wages. The social-policy goal of assuring a minimum income can thus be better achieved by public social transfers than by minimum wages. Here the Ifo Institute has proposed the model of Activating Social Welfare.
Materials
Allgemeinverbindlich erklärte Tarifverträge, Stand: 1. Januar 2007 Download (PDF, 20 KB)
Tables
Monatliche gesetzliche Mindestlöhne - Halbjährliche Daten Table | Download (PDF, 20 KB)
Anteil der Vollzeitbeschäftigten mit Mindestlöhnen (%) Table | Download (PDF, 20 KB)
Monatliche gesetzliche Mindestlöhne als Anteil der Monatslöhne (Jahresdurchschnitt) in der Industrie und den Dienstleistungen Table | Download (PDF, 20 KB)
Abowd, John M., Francis Kramarz, Thomas Lemieux and David N. Margolis, "Minimum Wages and Youth Employment in France and the United States", 1997, NBER Working Paper No. 6111.
Arbeitsgemeinschaft deutscher wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher Forschungsinstitute, "Die Lage der Weltwirtschaft und der deutschen Wirtschaft im Frühjahr 2005", see pp. 98ff ( Download, PDF, 650 KB )
Immervoll, Herwig, "Minimum Wages, Minimum Labour Costs and the Tax Treatment of Low-wage Employment", 2007, OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers No. 46.
Neumark, David and William Wascher, "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Review of Evidence from the New Minimum Wage Research", 2006, NBER Working Paper No. 12663.
Tables, charts and reports provided by Ifo's Database for Institutional Comparisons in Europe DICE
Statutory Gross Minimum Wages in Europe, 2006-2011 (Table | 01.01.2011 | Details | Download)
Statutory Minimum Wages (Report | 01.03.2005 | Details | Download)
Statutory Minimum Wages in Europe, 2004 (Table | 04.10.2005 | Details | Download)
Statutory Minimum Wages in the European Union and in the United States (Situation as at 1 January 2006) (Archived Table | 02.11.2006 | Details | Download)
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