Talk:List of countries by minimum wage

Page title

I think this should be called List of minimum wages by Country due to the sort ordering. -- cmh 03:54, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Here is an article on the minimum wage in Nigeria. http://www.redflag.org.uk/news/nigeria/wageleaflet.html

Ireland

I have updated Irelands score, it was way off. The minimum wage calculated now in Intl. dollars (see reference) should more accurately reflect the minimumwage in ireland now based on the 8.65 euro per hour score and 39 hours per week worked. Could someone please elaborate on how the old score was calculated ? It seems the IMF factor must have been over 1 which is incorrect as of 2009. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.92.94.23 (talk) 17:38, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Poor organization and consistency

This page lists minimum wages in so many different increments - by hour, week, month and year. I suggest that there should be a chart with headings: Country, Per Hour, Week, Month, Year, and then %GDP. All it would take is a lot of math. Conversely, if the minimum wages are mandated on a per week, month, or year basis then this should be noted somewhere, but as it is now this page has a chronic lack of consistency. LockeShocke 23:37, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Turkey

CieloEstrellado, I do not know why did you revert them to back but please informed that Turkish minimum wage is increased to 693 Turkish Lira by July 1 2009 by council of ministers' decision (http://www.cnnturk.com/2009/ekonomi/genel/06/25/asgari.ucret.temmuzda.19.tl.artacak/532390.0/index.html). Moreover, we do not use the Turkish new Lira currency anymore.

Please stop reverting figures that you have not informed of. I take a look of this talk page and its not the first time you set back the figures people are updating. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dogussahin (talk • contribs) 15:37, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Irish minimum wage

The information on the Irish minimum wage is accurate; here is the source: http://www.oasis.gov.ie/employment/pay_and_employment/pay_inc_min_wage.html As I don't see links for sources on the main page, I am not going to add them to the page - I will let someone else do that if they feel it is appropriate. I also do not see sources for the rest of the wages, so why was it necessary to remove this and not them? Supersheep 00:21, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Previous comment retracted - I found the sources. My bad. I'm still going to leave the source here for the moment, as I don't know whether style mandates inclusion in the body or at the end. Supersheep 00:26, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Irish minimum wage is €8.30/hr (US$10.80), as of 1 January 2007. It will be going up to €8.65/hr (US$11.25) on 1 July 2007. The maximum amount of hours that may be worked are 48 per week. This means the minimum possible annual wage is, €20,716.80 (€21,590.40 from 1 July 2007). Whoever keeps reverting this, could you please stop it, as you are making it innacurate. Sources for this include: [1] (wage) and [2] (hours). Whoever can convert this to International Dollars [correctly, I understand now it is not the same as US$, inflation is involved?], feel free too. Thank-you. 86.153.166.153 15:24, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

GDP per capita source?

Where is the GDP per capita source included? Is it a publication or just a local list here in WP, such as List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita or List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita?

I propose that percentages of GDP should reference GDP (source) data (as such indicated above) somewhere in article intro or in a table cell. Otherwise, combining old and new data gives inconsistent results, which are wrong. GDP source data that is authoritative, newer and not from abovementioned articles should be referenced.
-Mardus 07:44, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Agree. But I don't have the time to help. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 15:45, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Denmark

There is no law re. minimum wages in Denmark, but the trade unions have agreements covering most sectors of trade & industry. -Feels good that in one of the richest countries in this world, actually the workers themselves makes the regulations re. salaries !

Would have signed this, but my DK keyboard hesn´t got any so-called tildes..... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.35.23.167 (talk) 15:07, 16 March 2007 (UTC).

Under form submission buttons, there is a "Sign your username:" link. When you click on the four tildes link, you'll then get the corresponding signature tildes. -Mardus 17:40, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I've calculated the Danish "minimum" wage based on the negoatiation for 2009-2010 today. The result is:

(103.15 * 52 * 37) * Danish krone = 38 473.3735 U.S. dollars

103.15 dkk is the minimum hourly wage, Danes work 52 weeks per year and 37 hours per week (on average). But the value 38,473 dollars is a bit high - how would I go about converting it into international dollars ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.92.94.23 (talk) 14:28, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Polish minimum wage

There's a mistake in the table. It's written 899 PLN ($ 360) but this was a minimum wage for 2006. For 2007 it's 936 PLN ($ 375)and from January 1st. 2008 it will be 1126 PLN ($450). Please fix it.

• I have updated this data for the year 2007.

• I have updated this data for the year 2008 = it's 1126 PLN (450$) per month. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Misiek889 (talk • contribs) 12:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Brazil minimum wage

Minimum wage has increased to 415 reais (around 245 usd) on the 1st of March 2008. Adjusting % of per capita GDP (PPP) and Annual wage (Int. dollars) is still needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.21.29.66 (talk) 04:51, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Cuba

I'm Cuban and hereby say that the number in the site is quite adjusted to reality. So, why the rest of the numbers are not there? There are subsides to education and health care in many countries, and that's not reason to cloud the minimun wages there! Alcides (talk) 03:05, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Elaborate, please... ☆ CieloEstrellado 20:07, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Really. Cuba with 5,718 US dollars/year. This conversion has no sense. A Cuban get something like U$350.00/year. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Malves12 (talk • contribs) 19:06, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Minimum Wage of Poland

Why has somebody changed the Polish minimum wage into 899 zloty? It's been 1 126 zl since January 2008! Update it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.22.242.11 (talk) 12:00, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Uruguay

Uruguay minimum wage as of January 1 2008: $UY 3.416 [3] --NaBUru38 (talk) 14:02, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Cyprus and Malta

they need to be updated. They both use the Euro now, not Maltese Lira and Cypriot Pound Ijanderson977 (talk) 19:16, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

No Comparison

This is a great list, but there is no way to compare the rates based on cost of living, and no common denominator. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^TALK 12:12, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Elaborate, please... ☆ CieloEstrellado 20:08, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, It would be useful to see all these rates and to see them converted into US$ for example (common denominator). A new column added to show these figures would be handy. As for 'cost of living', whilst it would be useful, I think that is almost beyond the scope of this project. Stephenjh (talk) 23:10, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Chart

The chart goes by the first number in the number, not by highest or lowest number. Please fix this someone.Blaylockjam10 (talk) 09:32, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Map?

Of any value?

Looks good to me ... LookingGlass (talk) 19:38, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Egypt Minimum Wages

the information as provided is verifiable; it states the exact reference law no. 53 of the year 1984, which is published in the Official Gazette. More information can be verified from http://ww.state.gov/g/hrrpt/2007/100594.htm and the ILO database, even though such source have reporting lag and are not official verifiable primary source.

Egypt is one of the countries that ratified the ILO Minimum Wage Fixing Convention, 1970 http://www.ilo.org/ilolex/cgi-lex/ratifce.pl?C131 and as such it has an obligation to estblish a system for Minimum wages that "shall have the force of law" according to the convention.

Please do not vandalize informative updates. Thanks.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.36.11.25 (talk) 07:27, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I assume your edits are in good faith, but unfortunately the info can't be verified online. ☆ CieloEstrellado 06:46, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorting glitch

There's some sort of glitch in the way the table sorts on Gross Annual salary. I haven't tried to fix it though, the table is a true labour of love and I am CERTAIN I'd mess it up. LookingGlass (talk) 19:41, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

It looks as though the table thinks the entries are text instead of numbers and is sorting them accordingly. I don't know how to change this though. 84.12.252.210 (talk) 15:13, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, and why not have just a number in a standard currency for the minimum wage column, and the comments in a seperate 'comment' column. Camcurwood (talk) 19:50, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I've edited the table to allow for proper sorting. All the sortable columns seem to sort correctly on my browser (Mozilla Firefox version 3.6.8), but I could certainly be overlooking something. Please report any sorting errors here. To maintain the correct sorting, please wrap numbers in the nts template without using thousands separators. For example, to enter an annual wage of $15,400, please use {{dts|15400}}. For dates, please wrap with the dts template, using year, year-month, or year|month|day. For example, to enter 2010, use {{dts|2010}}. To enter September, 2010, use {{dts|2010-09}}. To enter September 6, 2010, use {{dts|2010|09|06}}. --Greenbreen (talk) 13:51, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

N/A

AMBIGUOUS - Presumably "not available" but could also mean "not applicable" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.225.37.54 (talk) 22:57, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

New Discussion

A discussion has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries which could affect the inclusion criteria and title of this and other lists of countries. Editors are invited to participate. Pfainuk talk 11:24, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Headline text

isn't it time to change the Maltan min. wage to euros from liras? --Egrian (talk) 16:38, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Bolivia's minimum wage has changed

Is now BOP 577.50 (77 US dollars) according to http://www.watsonwyatt.com/news/globalnews2.asp?nm=Latin%20America/Caribbean&ID=18890

I would update this, but I don't know how to convert it to International Dollars, etc.

The other updates on the website I shared should also be checked with what is currently on the main Wiki page.

Todayishere (talk) 21:36, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Conversion?

Could it be possible to have a conversion to $ and £? I dont know how easy this wouldbe but i'm sure it would be quite helpful Tomp94 (talk) 09:16, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Page is not very useful, since the wages can not be compared with different currencies. 192.87.123.159 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 09:46, 2 April 2009 (UTC).

There is a "Gross annual wage (Intl. dollars)" column for this purpose. ☆ CieloEstrellado 05:12, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

But that's 'annual wage' ... we didn't come here to see that, we came to see 'minimum wage' ... it's absolutely useless to have everything in different currencies. I don't know if 75000 of one currency is more or less than $2. Someone should convert everything. Dr. Universe (talk) 01:30, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

It's as easy as typing "75000 *currency name* in usd" into Google. Pristino (talk) 04:01, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

intl dollars don't give real the picture. Only real dollars do131.180.140.21 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 09:02, 26 April 2009 (UTC).

France, Luxembourg

France has a minimum wage amounting to abour $25,000 per year, and luxembourg's is even higher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_law#European_Union

Add it to the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alpha-ZX (talk • contribs) 14:01, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

new table

add columns to the table to respresent mimimum wages in preceding years converted to euro's or dollars. (and possibly compraed to GDP) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.87.123.162 (talk)

Hourly Rates

The note

Annual wages were calculated by multiplying monthly wages by 12, weekly wages by 52 and daily wages by 5x52; a purchasing power parity (PPP) conversion rate from 2008 —obtained from the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s World Economic Outlook Database, October 2008 Edition— was used to convert the annual wage from national currency to international dollars.

This doesn't mention how hourly rates (e.g. given from the UK, USA, Ireland) are/were converted in annual rates. --Neil (talk) 13:39, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

☆ CieloEstrellado 01:47, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Multiplying by 52 weeks gives an arbitrary amount as few people in Western nations work that amount. Salary convesrsion tables usually work on a basis of 40 working weeks per year. In addition, take the UK for example, the minimum wage (x5x52) gives a US dollar amount of just over 17,000. The figure given may be a national average, but this is supposed to be an article on "minimum wages", surely it would be more relevant to list the annual equivalent for someone on those minimum wages, not the average income for the nation as a whole... or maybe list both. However the table as is, seems to mix these two types of figures for the sake of completion. [User:Stephenjh|Stephenjh]] (talk) 08:39, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I was going to say something similar to the comments above. I would imagine that most 'minimum wage' jobs in the UK are not available for the legal maximum of 48hrs a way, and was contemplating suggesting that we use some constant value across all nations, like 40hrs (the classic '9-5' job, with no lunch) or 37.5hrs (as above, with a half-hour lunch-break).

How do these weekly and monthly minima work in practice? Are they based upon a 'full-time' occupation (35-48 hrs a week?), or a specified number of hours worked in a week? What would happen in practice were a person to work fewer hours than this; would the minimum not apply?

I wonder if it might not be possible to convert all the values into a 'per hour' rate, in addition to, or in preference to the annual rate, as in my naïve British mind this seems to be the most logical way to implement a minimum. --Neil (talk) 09:13, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Stephenjh: People don't actually work for 52 weeks in a year, but they are paid as if they did. Most civilized countries pay for rest periods, so their annual income should include all 52 weeks. Some European countries even mandate a 13th or 14th extra mont(hs) of pay, and this is reflected in the annual wage calculation.
Neil: I am assuming full-time work for annual wage calculation purposes. ☆ CieloEstrellado 14:26, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure that those on minimum get paid "holiday pay", normally that applies to those salaried. Either way, the annual total given for the UK is not the annual total for one on minimum wages, it's the national average. Wouldn't it make more sense to convert these hourly rates to reflect the title of the article and not national averages? Stephenjh (talk) 09:44, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

The "problem" with the UK figure is that it takes the 48 hours maximum workweek for the annual wage calculation. Maybe most people on the minimum don't work that many hours? ☆ CieloEstrellado 10:43, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

The problem with UK figure is that is has nothing to do with minimum wages, it's a national average for everyone in the nation whether they earn minimum or not. Stephenjh (talk) 12:09, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

So you're saying that because the annual wage derived from the UK minimum wage shown in this article resembles the UK national average wage, then it must be wrong? If so, what is the UK national average wage? The UK statistics office only publishes the "median" wage, which is useless (Edit: It's not useless per se. It's useless as a backing for your argument). I've seen on several web sites (one example) that the UK national average wage is above £30k, that makes it about $45k, which is about two times the amount shown in this article. Where are you getting your information from? ☆ CieloEstrellado 10:44, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

[Remove Indent] I think you have Stephen's thoughts right there. The figure (c. £14,000 per annum) reads as too high for a person on the minimum wage. Would you object to replacing the 48h with the average hours worked, 31.7 hours [4], which gives a value closer to what I would expect a person on the minimum wage to actually earn, c. £9,500 per annum. [Oh, and the media figure is often a better way to characterise the 'average' wage of a nation as it reduces the impact of those few people who earn millions relative to the mean value. It of course depends upon what you are looking to do with the data.]

So you are telling me that in the UK it is not possible for a person working from 8 AM to 5:30 PM from Monday to Friday, yearlong, to earn the minimum wage? As for using the "average hours worked" figure for the annual wage calculation, I think that would be highly misleading, as we are only considering full-time work here. What would be really helpful to know is the standard number of hours worked during the week for the majority of full-time workers. ☆ CieloEstrellado 13:41, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Look what I found: The mean gross salary for full-time employees in the UK was £31,323 in 2008. For all employee jobs came to £26,020. (Source: BBC News.) Pristino (talk) 09:10, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Very similar table in Chilean daily today

A very similar table with sometimes the same figures as in this article appeared today in Chilean daily La Tercera (Page 36). Here's a snapshot. The wage has been changed to a monthly figure and it differs slightly from the annual wage here, if we were to divide it by 12, because they are using the IMF's April 2009 database, while this article uses the October 2008 database. The "% of GDP per capita" numbers are exactly the same. They only quote the IMF for the information, but it is obvious the idea and some of the data were lifted from this article. ☆ CieloEstrellado 13:42, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Morocco-Tunisia-Turkey

I think that Tunisia and Morocco have a same purchasing power, so, how explain that moroccan minimum wage is so low in this table ? 10,15/hour so by 45 hours : 1997/month, 23964/year, so in US$, it means aproximatly 3000 us$ a year; and for tunisia, or 48 hours, (more than 45)it is i think 252 dinar/month, so 3022 dn/year, it means 2236 us$ !!, I suppose that is maybe 440$/month in turkey, how explain the result : 7400$... if the purchasing power is maybe 40% (and in tunisia or morocco 20%)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.251.86.233 (talk) 06:20, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

UK minimum wage is inaccurate

The minimum wage in the UK based on 37.5 hours a week @ £5.80 GBP / hour (full time) is £11,310 GBP or $16,938 USD Gross annual wage, (see http://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/hourly.php) and not the misleading 22,375 USD based on 48 hours a week (overtime - 6 days a week). Please do not include overtime! the numbers are misleading.

The Minimum wage in the UK (full-time job not including overtime) is $16,938 USD Gross annual wage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.222.147.207 (talk) 22:12, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the others--the UK minimum wage seems artificially high since it is currently based on a 48 hour work week. I found a website, [5], that says the average hours worked in 2007 in the UK was 36.5 for part-time workers and 42.1 for full-time workers. I was thinking of re-calculating the UK data based on a 40-hour work week, as this seems closer to what is actually worked. However, I'm American, and I probably have a 40-hour work week bias. I'd love to get comments from people who actually live and/or work in the UK. I'll wait a week or so for comments, and if I don't get any by then I'll go ahead with the change. --Greenbreen (talk) 18:43, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

The 36.5 hour figure is *including* part-time workers, not solely for part-time workers. 37.5 hours a week (7.5 hours a day) is pretty standard for the UK.

It's still a slightly confusing figure as I would anticipate that most minimum wage jobs are part-time. But it's a more fair basis for comparison.--212.44.10.10 (talk) 08:44, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

You're right. In that case, I'll calculate it based on 37.5 hours/week unless anyone has any other suggestions or objections. --Greenbreen (talk) 15:10, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Still listed as a 48 hour week. Any reason not to change it as suggested above? 86.154.8.182 (talk) 02:06, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Mexico

The chart for Mexico is not the hourly wage. Rather it is the daily minimum wage based on a full days of work —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.57.72.126 (talk) 07:19, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Benin

The currently cited reference states that the monthly minimum wage is 30,000 CFA francs per month, but the text of the wikipedia article states it as 31,625 CFA francs per month. I was able to find websites that support this, but none of them say when that rate was in effect. Does anyone have a reference that clearly states that the current rate is 31,625 CFA francs per month? --Greenbreen (talk) 09:33, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Gabon

Apparently the minimum wage in Gabon was almost doubled for workers employed by private companies, but I couldn't find any info on how the new law affects wages paid to government employees. Here are two of the websites I found:

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-26/gabon-almost-doubles-minimum-wage-for-private-company-workers.html
http://www.africagoodnews.com/economy/gabon-raises-minimum-wage-to-boost-purchasing-power.html

Does anyone have any other references that clearly show how the new law affects government workers? --Greenbreen (talk) 09:33, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Data for calculating % GDP per capita

There seems to be lack of consistency in calculating % GDP per capita. I had been going through and changing the data to use the IMF's data for 2009 GDP per capita at constant prices, but a recent edit seems to have used the 2009 per capita at current prices. After thinking about it a while, it seems like it may be more appropriate to use the current prices data. However, I have no formal education in economics, so I was hoping people more knowledgeable than myself could suggest the most appropriate data to use. Once there is a consensus on what data to use for the calculation, we can start going through and updating the %GDP column so that all rows use comparable data. --Greenbreen (talk) 17:20, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

 Fixed Table is now using a consistent calculation for "annual wage" and "% of GDP per capita" columns. IMF's October 2010 database was used. Pristino (talk) 06:06, 9 November 2010 (UTC)