Denmark Fairy Tales: Denmark does not have a $20 minimum wage

Denmark Fairy Tales: Denmark does not have a $20 minimum wage

11745935_1665704370329445_941328983120687525_nTL;DR Summary

In Part 1 of this review, we showed the claim that Denmark is the happiest country in the world because of the listed items is a logical fallacy; its not true.
In this part, we learn that the $20 minimum wage claim is not true either.

DENMARK DOES NOT HAVE $20 MINIMUM WAGE LAW

Denmark does not have a minimum wage law. The $20 figure comes from the AVERAGE of the lowest minimum wage negotiated for union jobs in Denmark [Source 2]. About 65-75% of workers in Denmark belong to a trade union. “Average” also means that some have a lower wage than $20. The $20 minimum wage claim is a distortion.

“Wage formation in Denmark is mainly based on collective and to a lesser degree individual bargaining. There is no legislation neither regarding wage formation in general nor regarding a national minimum wage.”

“Unions and employers’ associations still stand firmly on the view that pay-setting and minimum wages are issues for collective bargaining and not for legislation. A fixed minimum wage would in the long run render the bargaining system, the so-called Danish Model, superfluous, they claim.” [Source 1]

Sources

  1. http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/comparative-information/national-contributions/denmark/denmark-wage-formation
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country

Note also that in this poster, Occupy Democrats correctly translated the Danish Krone into US $s for price comparison, whereas in a similar poster regarding Canada, Occupy Democrats played a sleight-of-hand-trick, leaving the minimum wage in Canadian $s but comparing it to the differently valued US $. Details on the Canadian propaganda poster are here.

A more recent version of this poster now asserts a $21 per hour minimum wage in Denmark, which of course, is also not true for the same reasons. That said, wages are greater in Denmark for many reasons, including that 1 in 4 residents live in Copenhagen, the fifth most expensive city to live in, in the world. Denmark also has the highest taxes of any country in the world, ranging from about 40% to 70% of all personal income (including Denmark, local and 25% Value Added Tax). At $20/hour, the after tax take home pay is still better than in the U.S., but not by a huge amount.

FUTURE POSTS

Future posts will look at:

Text for Search Indexing

Why is the Denmark ranked the happiest country in the world by the United Nations?
$20 minimum wage
33 hour work week
Free University
Free Child Care
Free Health Care

Why is Denmark the happiest country in the world?
$20 minimum wage

33-hour work week

Free university

Free childcare

Free healthcare

Share if America should follow their lead

Occupy Democrats

Denmark v. USA
$21/hr. minimum wage   $7.25/hr. minimum wage
Free healthcare, childcare, college and job training – Healthcare, childcare and college are a luxury, can bankrupt you or saddle you with debt
Paid sick and parental leave – No paid sick/parental leave
Only 6.1% of children live in poverty – 23.1% of children are poor, highest rate in rich world
Ranked #1 happiest country
Ranked #1 country for business
Ranked #1 most unequal rich country
Share if Americans can learn from Denmark!
Occupy Democrats

2 thoughts on “Denmark Fairy Tales: Denmark does not have a $20 minimum wage

Comments are closed.

Comments are closed.