BERLIN (AP) — The German Parliament has approved the introduction of the country’s first national minimum wage, which will guarantee most workers in Europe’s biggest economy at least 8.50 euros ($11.60) per hour starting next year.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is taking the step at the insistence of her coalition partners since last December, the center-left Social Democrats. Some employers will have two years to phase in the minimum wage, which takes effect Jan. 1.
Merkel’s conservatives have gone along with the plan unenthusiastically; for decades, determining wages in Germany has been a matter almost entirely for unions and employers. Under-18s will be exempted, as will the long-term unemployed in the first six months after they return to work.
Lawmakers voted 535-5 with 61 abstentions in favor of the minimum wage on Thursday.
$11.60 is still chump change, even in Europe. Living minimum wage, or quit. No one who is currently rich will not be any less so. Quite the opposite.
“So, did an Excel coding error destroy the economies of the Western world?” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/opinion/krugman-the-excel-depression.html?_r=0
Nice to see Ms. Merkel finally smell the coffee about austerity but now, please cue the ‘Greek’ chorus to emanate from the wallow on the Potomac about socialism.
there need to be a national minimum wage here in the u.s. of a.
could someone ask merkel to call boneheaded boehner for me.
There is a national minimum wage in the US, in fact it is the only minimum wage in a number of States, it just isn’t high enough to actually live off of.
There goes the one of the last bastions that the GOP and “conservatives” love to point to in trying to defend their attacks on the min. wage.