We need a statutory ban on anything paying any of its employees more than 10 times
what it paid any of its other employees, with the whole public sector
functioning as a single entity for this purpose, and with its median
wage fixed at the median wage in the private sector, to which manual
jobs would no longer be outsourced. MPs and Ministers would be included
in that, and there would be a statutory ban on anything, anywhere in the
economy, paying anyone more than the Prime Minister.
In
much that vein, there is also the matter of holding Iain Duncan Smith to
the logical conclusion of his position, namely a unified system of
taxation, benefits, pensions, minimum wage legislation and student
funding, to ensure that no one’s tax-free income ever fell below half
national median earnings. Some of us have been blogging away for years
that there should be a single form of Social Security payment, called
simply Social Security, and guaranteeing that minimum income
universally.
Ed Balls, over to you.
Great idea. Another interesting idea is the Job Guarantee. If the government acted as "the employer of last resort," it could act to put a floor under which wages would not descend by offering public works employment at a given wage. This would put pressure on private employers to raise their wages to compete for scarce labor (I am assuming a Job Guarantee would be part of a general full employment program, so there would be no massive army of unemployed workers).
ReplyDeleteBusinesses that could not remain competitive under a Job Guarantee system would simply go out of business or would perhaps become automated. Now that is creative destruction!
One of the few things the Eastern European socialists got right was the virtual elimination of the previously large class of marginally employed workers through the extension of public employment.
Today, we are seeing the ranks of the marginally employed explode, which is a very pernicious development.