I do agree woth you. In Spain, part-time jobs and workships represent a great percentage of workforce out of official minimum wage statistics.

10% of workers would like to work more hours but they can't-

I hope you can understand the graphic

http://www.elconfidencial.com/economia/2015-04-28/el-subempleo-se-hace-fuerte-en-la-economia-y-afecta-a-2-2-millones-de-ocupados_783584/

In Ukraine, an average of 170 euros.

Inflation that occurred this winter was against the euro almost two times higher.

Alexander

Here in LatinAmerica the question is the quality of employment. For example, in Colombia, where I was born, the 60% of workers are in the informality, without minimum rights to social security. In Brazil and Argentina the informality in the market job is more or less 25%. A recent study of OCDE revealed that the mininum wage in Colombia is 75% of the average wage in labour market. So the people income is too low.

Kind regards

Silvio Salej

Dear Alexander, without entering into any kind of conspiracy theory a sound and safe politics is to doubt always from all official statistics regarding -particularly - the minimum wage. As we all know, statistics as such does not exist: you build them up. Even in the case of descriptive statistics. (Not to mention that originally statistics is a political science: a science of and about the State, literally).

I love the justification to your question: very good, indeed. I learnt form it.

Dear Sir,

Since you exposed Slovenia, I feel obliged to say something. I believe that you are aware of comments below but still i want expose few elements.

1. Minimal wage should be understood in difference between gross and net (about 790 eur to 580 eur). Same goes also for average wages (cca 1400 Eur to 1000 eur).

2. By the graph you presented, Slovenia has high minimal wage. And also the EU-stat shows the same logic - Slovenia has relatively high minimal wage. Even if it is mistake and there is mixture of Slovenia and Slovakia - does not work. Slovakia should have average wage around Slovenian minimal wage.

3. Statistic on minimal wages is probably realistic - the average wages are more questionable since there can be big statistical lie. Slovenian current net average wage is cca. 1000 Eur but this info should be corrected by the info that 65% of workers earn less than this and quite significant number of workers get minimal wage (unfortunately i have no info on share of workers getting minimal wage at hand). Point is, that average net  of 65% workers is not that far form minimal wage.

4. and for sure there should be also discussion about life expenses (no matter minimal or average wage).

In Romania , authorities introduced in 2000  the ''minimum monthly consume basket", containing food and non-food products, also services. (the Emergency Ordinance no.217/2000).  The minimum wage was then settled according to this index. But in 2005, this law was abandoned and now with the minimum wage, settled by the government, it is virtually impossible to cover all costs for one month, taking into account that the cost of goods and services is now more or less the same like in the developed countries of Western Europe. Besides, the phenomenon of people working without official contracts is quite common, so, the minimum wage is a fact only in the public institutions, and just symbolic  in the private sector.

It is an error to compare minimum wages of different countries without taking into to account the cost of life and other factors.  Otherwise, the research is just a nice exercise of applied mathematics.

If you use google translate from Romanian to English, you can find out more details in these articles: 

http://www.gandul.info/financiar/cat-costa-acelasi-cos-zilnic-de-cumparaturi-pentru-un-roman-si-un-neamt-experiment-pe-axa-bucuresti-frankfurt-cu-un-rezultat-surpriza-14145168

http://www.infolegal.ro/cosul-minim-de-consum-lunar/2015/05/26/

http://jurnalul.ro/special-jurnalul/cosul-lunar-de-supravietuire-2-000-de-lei-143195.html

Minimum wages is an idea of an ideal of poverty symbols. In India these are calcultaed indexed with price levels but are rarely delivered to the labour in most of the sectos, including the governemnt units.

Dear colleagues,

thank you for your input and your answers. It seems, that:

- We can not compare national minimum wages without considering the prices, the true income in reality, the part-time labour and other aspects.

We therefore have to identify realistic indicators to measure the true income situation of most of the people, especially those not working or working informal. Neither the average income nor the minimum wage contribute to that question.

Very good point. In most cases these statistics are not realistic because any minimum wage must guarantee that it covers all the basic necessities of a worker and his/her family.  In other words, a minimum wage must always be a living wage. Yet there are no laws that enforce that minimum wages concurrently constitute a living wage.  Furthermore, to determine what is a living wage in a given country, its government has to use purchasing power parities for private consumption, which approximately reflect the actual cost of living for a household.  This practice is customarily avoided, for obvious reasons, despite the fact that a living wage is considered a human right. Lastly, the poverty lines are frequently grossly underestimated. The U.S. is one case, for the real poverty line is about twice the official poverty line.  Here is one relatively recent assessment I wrote on the issue: LIVING WAGES IN THE PARADIGM TRANSITION – THE IMPERATIVE CHALLENGE OF TRANSCENDING THE MARKET

http://www.jussemper.org/Resources/Corporate%20Activity/Resources/Living_Wages_in_the_Paradigm_Transition.pdf

Very good point. In most cases these statistics are not realistic because any minimum wage must guarantee that it covers all the basic necessities of a worker and his/her family.  In other words, a minimum wage must always be a living wage. Yet there are no laws that enforce that minimum wages concurrently constitute a living wage.  Furthermore, to determine what is a living wage in a given country, its government has to use purchasing power parities for private consumption, which approximately reflect the actual cost of living for a household.  This practice is customarily avoided, for obvious reasons, despite the fact that a living wage is considered a human right. Lastly, the poverty lines are frequently grossly underestimated. The U.S. is one case, for the real poverty line is about twice the official poverty line.  Here is one relatively recent assessment I wrote on the issue: LIVING WAGES IN THE PARADIGM TRANSITION – THE IMPERATIVE CHALLENGE OF TRANSCENDING THE MARKET

http://www.jussemper.org/Resources/Corporate%20Activity/Resources/Living_Wages_in_the_Paradigm_Transition.pdf

Dear  Alexander Dill,

İ find interesting article for  minimum wagesş

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/07/23/5-facts-about-the-minimum-wage/

https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=RMW

Regards, Shafagat