The minimum hourly wage in Scotland is set by the UK government and is currently £6.50 ($10.21) I think, having risen a bit since July from £6.31 ($9.92). The SNP want control over the minimum wage to be devolved to our government so we can set a Scottish national minimum wage for the first time and they would raise it to at least £7.45 ($11.71), or the £7.65 ($12.02) recommended by a group set up by the SNP to look into welfare with independence. The SNP's main goal is for it to rise with the cost of inflation - the current set up doesn't work that way.
Labour fought tooth and nail to prevent the national minimum wage being devolved to Scotland under the post-referendum devolution settlement set up a month or two ago. They would rather it be under the control of a Conservative government than a government elected by the Scottish people, evidently. That said, they seem to be campaigning for a national minimum wage of £8 an hour ($12.57), but they would implement it "by 2020" which is a long way away. If we raise the minimum wage by 2.5% each year we'd get £7.53, which is essentially Labour's headline price - and basically the same thing as the SNP's proposals, except we have to wait for the pink elephant of another Labour majority to get it. But yeah, a paltry increase of 47p an hour each year - will that really make any difference to the working poor in this country?
The Scottish Socialist Party are currently campaigning for a national minimum wage (in Scotland) or more accurately a "living wage" of £10 an hour or ($15.73), as they have been doing so since 1998. I lean most in favour of that settlement, with the absolute minimum I would settle for being £7.65.
A "team member" working in Burger King in Edinburgh would make about £6.50 an hour, working 8 hour shifts for 5 days, which would make about £260 ($408.69) a week if I calculated that correctly, would be living just over the poverty line - which is £225 (£353.85) a week. Add in a young family to support or debts or god knows what in this current economic climate and that could push them under. With a £10 an hour minimum wage they'd get around £400 ($628.60) for a 5 day working week of 8 hour shifts. Considering the benefit to the economy that younger people having that much money to spend would do and also the fact that it would allow them to have bigger families, I believe that would be a good course of action.
For my fellow Europeans and even Americans and people from further afield, what is the minimum wage in your country?
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