alt Hacker NewsIt's really annoying that minimum wage and the like aren't pegged to a general 'cost of living'-number that scales with inflation and whatnot. Peg the wages of the politicians to the same number. If they then want to increase their own wages, they have to also increase the minimum wage, or go out of their way to only increase their own wage, which will hopefully cause some people to call them out on their shenanigans.
Replies
johnnyanmac • today at 2:55 AM
I do love the idea of tying the wages of public servants roughly to their constituents. But we already know the loophole of "use insider trading and bribes" to get around such restrictions on salary. Above all else, we need proper accountability before we dream of any real change like this.
Are there really a lot of countries where politicians are constantly increasing their wages while minimum wage stays the same? In the UK, both numbers are set by independent commissions which primarily adjust for cost of living; MP wages also have a modest benchmarking adjustment to ensure they stay in line with what civil servants responsible for similarly complex work would make. The US has "solved" the problem by increasing neither politician salaries nor minimum wage since 2009.