Australia has the world’s highest minimum wage
Workers at the legal floor make two-thirds more than their peers in America
AUSTRALIA HAS long been at the leading edge of minimum wages. The state of Victoria was the second place in the world to introduce a wage floor in 1896, beaten only by New Zealand. A landmark legal case in 1907 took a more expansive view of a fair wage, ruling that it should be enough to maintain a family with three children in “frugal comfort”. Australia is still at it: it now has the world’s most generous minimum wage, reclaiming a distinction it last held more than a decade ago.
The OECD, a club mainly of rich countries, compares minimum wages around the world by adjusting for inflation and the cost of living, and converting them into American dollars. On that basis Australian workers pulled in at least $12.14 an hour last year, up by nearly 4% from 2017. That puts them narrowly ahead of their peers in Luxembourg, ranked second, and a whopping two-thirds better off than federal minimum-wage earners in America (see chart).
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline "Sun, surf and bonzer pay"
Asia July 20th 2019
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- Pakistan’s borderlands at last win a say in their own administration
- Relations between Japan and South Korea are fraying alarmingly
- Australia has the world’s highest minimum wage
- Malaysia’s callow government has not kept its vows on civil liberties
- The sad decline of spectacular Afghan weddings
From the July 20th 2019 edition
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