Minimum Wages

The following letter was published hed in today’s Oz –

Some lateral thinking on minimum wages.

May I suggest setting the minimum wage as a fixed fraction of the total salaries of the wealthiest? The formula could be very simple. For example the minimum wage could be set at 5 per cent of the average remuneration of the top 1 per cent of all earners. In that way, every time a CEO manages to screw a few more million out of his board, everyone else will have to be paid a small increase. This will cause restraint at the top end and fairness at the bottom, and save much legal argument.

J. Whitehead, Chapel Hill, Qld

This is one of the most common-sensed proposals I’ve seen in a month of Sundays. I wonder how the captains of industry would deal with it.

I've got a pretty fair idea.