Generally speaking, low income workers earn low incomes because their jobs require little or no prior training.

Conversely, high income workers earn high incomes because they have usually spent a number of years, along with tens of thousands of dollars, training to gain skills which qualify them to earn the higher incomes that go with their respective positions.

To hear idiots moaning about the so called ‘wage gap’ in the New Zealand employment market is nothing short of ignorant; of course there’s a wage gap, that’s because some people don’t deserve to be paid as much as others. To hear those same idiots complaining that the minimum wage is too low is similarly ignorant; it’s low because minimum wage workers don’t usually require skills or, more to the point, training, to do what they do.

Nevertheless, once more, John Key has succumbed. The minimum wage has again been raised. Hallelujah, some ignorant workers might say; about time, other dickheads might chime in…

I’ll keep it simple for the aforementioned ignoramuses. Listen up. The Government does not pay your wages. Really, the Government has no right to say how much employers should pay employees; it’s nothing to do with the Government. Look at it like this. If an employer has to pay a minimum wage increase of $10,000 annually, that’s $10,000 by which that company or small business must increase its profit margin each year. For bigger companies this is probably fine, they can likely absorb the shortfall, but for smaller businesses, just starting out and looking to employ unskilled labour on the cheap, a surplus of ten grand a year could well amount to an impossible task.

All that you complaining minimum wagers are effectively doing, as well as crushing the chances of small business in New Zealand, is increasing the overall unemployment rate as companies, at the new legally binding minimum wage, simply, cannot afford to employ as many staff as they once could.

Nice one guys.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Mini Hungary

Photography by Mel Ling-Gerr