Yes I hear this stupid term umpteen times a week in NZ. I don't know what it means where you are but in NZ, the proponents want NZD18.80 per hour.
http://www.livingwagenz.org.nz/
This works out to NZD3308.80 per month for an 8 hour a day x 22 days job.
My good friend's son is an electronics engineering graduate and he's been working in NZ for 5 years and currently earns NZD39,000 per year.
So if the minimum wage was set at the claimed "living" wage, it would mean that a 17 year old with no experience no qualifications who flips hamburgers at Mcdonald's will earn about the same amount as a qualified engineer with a tertiary education.
To add insult to injury, there are many teachers and nurses who are on $30,000 a year so they'd end up earning less than a hamburger flipper.
It goes without saying that the teachers' nurses' and engineering unions would not take this lying down and would demand pay increases for all their members to commensurate with their qualifications, experience and the importance of their jobs.
So the ball would start rolling and every profession and trade would have to move up a notch.
This would raise costs for everyone and we all know that the money has to come from somewhere so businesses would raise their prices, govt would raise their fees and taxes, doctors would raise their consultations, McDonald's would do away with their specials and the consumer would end up footing the bill.
NZD18.80 would therefore no longer be sufficient for a living wage anymore and the living wage campaigners would set a new target of say NZD22.80.
And so it would go on. The treadmill would go faster and faster and everyone would have to run harder in order to just stay in the same spot.
