ANALYSIS OF THE FACTORS THAT IMPACT NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGES ACROSS THE GLOBE AND ITS IMPACT TO THE COUNTRIE’S ECONOMY ON EMPLOYMENT RETENTION, HOURS AND JOB Using Germany as A Model for Detail Analysis Rana Azizah Ramadhani 2022 RAFFLES COLLEGE ECO211 – Principles of Macroeconomics ESSAY by Rana Azizah Ramadhani EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Aims The purpose of this essay is to analyse the factors that impact a national minimum wage around the world to find the similarities and differences of the motives and the cause on its nation’s economy. The main focus is how national minimum wages impact on employment retention, hours and job entry globally. Researcher discuss the application of national minimum wages in several countries and picks one country to analyse specifically as a model to be focus on, with hope researcher can identify how national minimum wage works in details. Data This report is based on analysis of few journals studying national minimum wage in general and in Germany. Methods The development of this essay is by analysing the studies and evidence related and how it correlates with the fundamental purpose of national minimum wage. 2 RAFFLES COLLEGE ECO211 – Principles of Macroeconomics ESSAY by Rana Azizah Ramadhani CONTENT 1. 2. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 4 1.1. Aim .................................................................................................................................. 4 1.2. Essay Structure ................................................................................................................ 4 DATA ........................................................................................................................... 5 2.1. Theories ........................................................................................................................... 5 2.2. Evidence & Recent Studies ............................................................................................... 5 3. ANALYSIS ................................................................................................................... 13 4. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION .................................................................................... 15 5. REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 16 3 RAFFLES COLLEGE ECO211 – Principles of Macroeconomics ESSAY by Rana Azizah Ramadhani 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. Aim The aim of this research is to discuss the impact of national minimum wage application in several countries by identifying the motives and output within the nations that apply such law. The main questions to be addressed by the research are: o o o o How does minimum wage set in several countries? How does national minimum wage impact to employers, employee and government? What impact has the National Minimum Wage on employment retention, hours and job in Germany? Has the higher minimum wages support job growth as the economy recovers from COVID-19 in the globally? 1.2. Essay Structure The essay begins by describing the fundamental theories that will be used in the analysis, then connects the theories with evidences. The following chapter provides analysis to answer the addressed questions listed above. Summary and conclusion will be explained to complete the essay. 4 RAFFLES COLLEGE ECO211 – Principles of Macroeconomics ESSAY by Rana Azizah Ramadhani 2. DATA 2.1. Theories MINIMUM WAGE According to International Labour Organization (2022), minimum wage is defined as a minimum amount of remuneration that an employer is required to pay wage earners for the work performed during a given period, which cannot be reduced by collective agreement or an individual contract. Minimum wages is commonly set by statute, decision of a competent authority, a wage board, a wage council, or by industrial or labour courts or tribunals. In few cases, minimum wages can also be set by giving the force of law to provisions of collective agreements. PURPOSE OF MINIMUM WAGE The purpose of minimum wages is to protect workers against unduly low pay, help ensure a just and equitable share of the fruits of progress to all, and a minimum living wage to all who are employed and in need of such protection. It is one element of a policy to overcome poverty and reduce inequality, including those between men and women, by promoting the right to equal remuneration for work of equal value (International Labour Organization, 2022). Minimum wage should be designed in a way to supplement and reinforce other social and employment policies. Several types of measures can be used to tackle income and labour market inequality, including pro-employment policies, social transfers, and creating an enabling environment for sustainable enterprises (International Labour Organization, 2022). 2.2. Evidence & Recent Studies THE EFFECT OF SETTING MINIMUM WAGE IN A COUNTRY FOR EMPLOYERS, EMPLOYEES, AND GOVERNMENT Minimum wages and overall demand According to Eyraud and Saget (2005) looking from a revenue point of view, a rise in the minimum wage will stimulate overall demand in two ways: directly by increasing the lowest wages, and indirectly since the knock-on effect it has on the whole wage hierarchy as the payroll is increased. They found that minimum wage will have a positive effect on growth, which in turn should result in higher employment, if the increase is non-inflationary. The effect of an increase will be even more marked as it tends to affect low wage earners who have a greater consumption propensity to spend. However, they identified that the minimum wage has been used this way in only one or two isolated cases. For example the substantial minimum wage hike in France following the 1968 strikes had a very positive effect on growth although the rise was made in direct response to massive wage claims by the workers. Yet the positive effect that it could have on demand made it far easier for the government to accept and for the economy to absorb. 5 RAFFLES COLLEGE ECO211 – Principles of Macroeconomics ESSAY by Rana Azizah Ramadhani Minimum wages and employment A higher minimum wage is found by Eyraud and Saget (2005) to be discouraging employers from using the very low-wage, low-skill workers that minimum wages are intended to help. A large body of evidence— although not all of it—confirms that minimum wages reduce employment among low- wage, low-skill workers. They identified a minimum wages do a bad job of targeting poor and low-income families. Minimum wage laws mandate high wages for low-wage workers rather than higher earnings for low-income families. Low-income families need help to overcome poverty. Research for the US generally fails to find evidence that minimum wages help the poor, although some subgroups may be helped when minimum wages are combined with a subsidy program, like a targeted tax credit. The minimum wage is a relatively ineffective policy for achieving the goal of helping poor and low-income families. More effective policies are those that increase the incentives for members of poor and low-income families to work. The relationship between minimum wages and employment is the aspect that has been studied most often and is the most controversial. In practice, authorities tend to consider minimum wages as production cost which encourages the negative aspects of minimum wage increases on employment to be emphasized. (Brown, 2002) The minimum wage was implemented in many countries well before employment and unemployment became major economic and political issues. Any suggestion that minimum wage increases suggested by Eyraud and Saget to have be curbed in order to avoid a rise in unemployment is spurious as this could be taken as an excuse to fix the minimum wage at a level which would make it meaningless. The question that arises is whether successful companies can recover the market share lost by the former following an increase in the minimum wage and absorb the workforce made redundant in the process instead of the survival of marginal business. According to their study, the trade unions in Slovenia refute the argument that even a low minimum wage could have a serious effect on the country’s textile industry as they maintain that many of the sector’s business will close down anyway due to competition with developing countries and this argument cannot be continually invoke to hinder the introduction of a decent minimum wage. A similar idea was put forward by the Low Pay Commission, the body which sets the minimum wage in the United Kingdom, when it pointed out that using low wages as a tool for competitiveness tended to be characteristic of businesses, notably small ones, that have very poor personnel management practices. Minimum wages and inflation (Eyraud and Saget, 2005) Legislators initially introduce cost of living criterion in an effort to maintain the purchasing power of the minimum wage which is the most frequently cited criterion in minimum wage legislation and the one that is most often compulsory which has twofold effects: i) ii) a minimum wage increase protects the lowest-paid wage earners from inflation but through its impact on wages and public deficits, it risks accelerating the inflationary spiral by affecting wage costs and putting pressure on overall demand in which government handle this great caution. 6 RAFFLES COLLEGE ECO211 – Principles of Macroeconomics ESSAY by Rana Azizah Ramadhani In theory, Eyraud and Saget agreed that there should be no link between the minimum wage and wage hierarchy given that the minimum wage affects only the lowest-paid wage earners. However, in practice, they found a minimum wage affects only the wages across the board because- and this is a fundamental and universal aspect of the minimum wage- it is considered to be the wage benchmark. The impact that the minimum wage can have on wages may explain its role in antiinflationary policies. It can have a direct effect when there is an indexation clause with the cost of living index. This formal link has been challenged during periods of high inflation in many countries, for instance in Europe in the 1980s when countries such as Denmark, Austria, Belgium, Italy and France modified or even stopped wage indexation altogether. In France, although minimum wage increases continue to be partially index-linked to inflation, the legislation prohibits any reference to the customer price index or to minimum wage adjustments during wage negotiations. A rise in the minimum wage can lead to a higher payroll as a result of the increase in low wages and subsequent dispersion throughout the wage hierarchy. The existence of links between minimum wages and social security benefits in many countries is another factor contributing to higher wage costs. The use of the minimum wage to curb inflation can take two forms. i) ii) The first is radical, consisting of keeping the minimum wage at the same level until it is so low that it plays barely any role in wage increases. The second, less radical, is aimed at limiting the impact of minimum wage increases. This is done, for example, by raising the minimum wage in line with predicted rather than observed past-year inflation rates in order to avoid transferring the pace of inflation from the previous year to the next. Eyraud and Sage (2005) found that another possibility is to systematically fix the minimum wage increase below the inflation rate, thus demonstrating the will to curb wage growth. This policy was followed in Brazil until 1995. Before then, adjustment invariably amounted to less than the increase in the cost of living index. The last minimum wage adjustment, in May 2004, was an increase of 8.33 per cent, greater than the inflation rate. This policy shift did not satisfy the trade unions, however, because in terms of purchasing power the minimum wage had fallen behind so much that the recent increases were unable to make up for all the years in which the adjustment had not kept pace with inflation. HOW THE NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE IMPACTS EMPLOYEE RETENTION, HOURS & JOB IN GERMANY New research (2018) from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) has found the introduction of a uniform national minimum wage for the first time in Germany in 2015 did not lead to an increase in unemployment. The study published as a Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) discussion paper, is the first of its kind to study the wider implications of Germany’s minimum wage policy on pay and regional migration. The researchers concluded fears of increased unemployment and internal migration are likely to be unfounded, as workers’ wages 7 RAFFLES COLLEGE ECO211 – Principles of Macroeconomics ESSAY by Rana Azizah Ramadhani were likely to have been below the market rate, as companies absorbed the higher cost of labour without making redundancies. The federal minimum wage was introduced in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, in January 2015, across all 16 of the countries federal states. German employers were required to pay workers at least €8.50 per hour as a result of the law, or 48% of the median salary of fullātime workers. (Ahlfeldt et al., 2018) There are highly differing levels of productivity and salary in German regions, for example, workers in Bavaria in Germany’s south west typically enjoy higher average wages than workers in the Mecklenburg, which neighbours Poland in Germany’s north east. Therefore, minimum wage policy had a greater impact on pay in Germany’s poorer regions, where many workers earn less than the 48% of the median salary, and a relatively smaller effect on wages in the richer areas, where fewer workers earn less than the minimum. Some economists predicted that because of the relatively high level of Germany’s minimum wage, regions with lower wages would experience an economic shock which would lead to increases in unemployment, as organisations sought to reduce their wage bill. It was also assumed that outward migration from the region would rise, as unemployed citizens sought work in other parts of Germany. To identify the effects across the regions, the researchers analysed employment levels in Germany from 2011 to 2016. They found that in regions where wages were low, the minimum wage was introduced without changes to employment levels. In fact, unemployment fell in many areas with relatively lower wages for a period in 2015. Study suggest the steady levels of employment in Germany’s low-wage regions mean workers were being underpaid, as organisational revenues were transferred to workers rather than being retained by their employers through redundancies that would reduce their overall wage bill. The German experience challenges labour market theory where supply and demand for labour ensures wages are set correctly according to worker’s productivity. Dr Gabriel Ahlfeldt, Associate Professor of Urban Economics and Land Development of the Department of Geography and Environment said that the fact that they observe policy-enforced increases in wages without job losses implies that workers were paid below their marginal product, is not consistent with the standard labour economics model and suggests that employers could afford paying higher wages to low-wage earners. He also stated that the policy, so far, appears to have led to some reduction in inequalities across individuals and regions overall. In addition, it does not seem to have caused unemployment or outmigration in the economically weaker regions in the east, a fear that might explain why Germany was a late adopter of such a policy based on his explanation. It becomes important to consider the effect on monthly earnings answering the question of whether the minimum wage not only increased hourly wages, but also the overall labour income position of the target group. Burauel et al.( 2019) considers that the goal of the reform was not just to increase wages per hour, but rather to improve the economic situation of low-income individuals. Monthly earnings combine two possible dimensions of adjustment: hours worked and hourly wages. In a related contribution, Burauel et al. (2019) demonstrate that the minimum wage introduction not only increased wages, but also had a negative impact on average hours worked. Therefore, in the following, they investigate the net effect of these two opposing forces. Table 7 depicts the results of the DTADD estimation from eq. (3) where the change in gross monthly earnings replaces the change in wages as the dependent variable. 8 RAFFLES COLLEGE ECO211 – Principles of Macroeconomics ESSAY by Rana Azizah Ramadhani Bureauel et al. (2019) descriptively examines the evolution of the wage and earnings structure of German workers around the time of the introduction of the minimum wage reform and causally identify the impact of the reform on the wage and income distribution. The descriptive analyses show an acceleration of wage growth for workers earning below €8.50/hour after the introduction of the wage floor in January 2015. Wages increased by 15 % between 2014 and 2015 despite a consistently lower growth rate of below 2 % in previous periods (1998–2014) in the bottom 10th percentile of the wage distribution. Between 2014 and 2016, contractual and actual hourly wages of low wage workers experienced above-average growth, not only with respect to previous periods, but also in comparison to high-wage earners. The analysis further finds reduction in mean log deviations of wages throughout the distribution from 2014 to 2016, indicating a compression in the overall wage distribution. Notwithstanding above-average wage growth at the bottom of the distribution, however, hourly wages of approximately 1.8 million workers still remained below the legal wage floor at the end of the first quarter of 2016 compared to 2.8 million before the reform. As such, the cross-sectional analysis paints an ambivalent picture, with substantial wage gains for many in the low-income segments of the distribution, but also with a large number of workers for whom compliance remains an issue. 9 RAFFLES COLLEGE ECO211 – Principles of Macroeconomics ESSAY by Rana Azizah Ramadhani (Bureauel et al., 2019) As a complement to the cross-sectional analysis, the panel allowed for an investigation of individual wage growth and mobility. Particularly high growth rates in the bottom decile of the distribution indicate that very low wages represent a transitory phenomenon for many workers. This group tends to consist of young workers with short employment biographies, who gain experience and quickly transition into higher wage segments. The panel analysis further finds that workers earning below the minimum wage before the introduction had a higher probability of transitioning into higher wage segments than had been the case in previous years: the probability of transitioning into the segment between €8.50 and €10.50 increased by 10 percentage points and the probability of transitioning into a job paying over € 12.00 increased by 7.5 percentage points. Meanwhile, the probability of this group to leave employment decreased by 6 percentage points and the probability of the non-employed to take up a job decreased by 1 percentage point from 2014 to 2016 compared to 2012–2014. Employing a DTADD strategy, study finds that the minimum wage introduction can account for hourly wage growth in the order of 6.47 percentage points, or €0.50/hour more than would have otherwise been the case for the treatment group of individuals earning below €8.50/hour before the reform. The analysis yields a positive and marginally significant treatment effect on monthly earnings of 6.6 percentage points, or €54/month. Subgroup analysis according to type of employment (socially insured vs. marginally employed) revealed that the minimum wage had the highest positive impact on the wages of marginal workers, who experienced a 15.5 percentage points higher growth rate on account of the reform, followed by the full-time regularly employed with an additional increase in hourly wages of 7.8 percentage points. Despite positive treatment effects for hourly wages in both of these groups, however, no impact of the minimum wage reform on monthly earnings could be detected when estimating the effect for these groups separately. The absence of an effect may be attributed to a reduction in power (small sample size) after partitioning the sample into the socially insured and marginally employed. The introduction of the statutory minimum wage in Germany presents a substantial intervention into the labour market. Study investigated its short-term impacts on the wage and earnings distribution, accounting for detectable effects through the second quarter of 2016. Evaluations of minimum wages in other countries have established that the full implementation of national, statutory minimum wages tend to experience a delay due to lags in wage and salary policy responses or adjustments to production processes of employers and/or time needed to clarify legal details. Therefore, continued evaluation of the medium to long-run effects will prove indispensable for understanding the full impact of the reform. Going forward, it remains to be seen whether the positive treatment effect will persist or even grow over time and whether the compliance gap will close, for instance due to stronger sanctions for non-compliance or to social pressure. More compliance, on the other hand, could induce stronger negative employment effects, which would carry further repercussions for the wage distribution. Moreover, it is likely that the relatively favourable business cycle that accompanied the introduction prevented a larger negative employment reaction. This situation may change if faced with a future recession. Finally, substitution effects in the medium run cannot be ruled out. It is possible that firms begin to favour workers exempted from the minimum wage or that they alter their production processes to 10 RAFFLES COLLEGE ECO211 – Principles of Macroeconomics ESSAY by Rana Azizah Ramadhani outsource work packages abroad or to the self-employed in order to cut costs. All of these adjustments could influence the long-run income distribution in Germany. HIGHER MINIMUM WAGES SUPPORT JOB GROWTH AS THE ECONOMY RECOVERS FROM COVID-19 Case in Germany Cited from dw.com, Germany's minimum wage will be raised over several stages, officials announced on Tuesday, eventually amounting to €10.45 ($11.74) per hour by mid-2022. After prolonging the talks and canceling one press conference last minute, the representatives of both employers and workers' unions unanimously agreed to boost the minimum wage from the current €9.35 to €10.45 by July 2022. The minimum wage will be gradually increased over four stages, with the first bump set to take place in January 2021. German Labour Minister Hubertus Heil said the government would implement the recommendation. Many employers have warned that raising the minimum wage too much would make it harder to hire people during the recovery phase with the German economy reeling under the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Angela Merkel's conservative CDU party - he economy council of Chancellor, described it as a "millstone" for the business, according to a report published by the newspapers of the Funke media group. In turn, workers' representatives said the raise would give boost to spending among some two people in the lowest income bracket. Following the decision, the opposition Left and Green parties said the increase was too small. Labour Minister Heil, however, said there will be more minimum wage reforms coming 2021 fall. Germany only introduced the minimum wage regulation in 2015. It has been a "success story, that needs to keep being written" according to Germany Labour Minister and that the state should work towards bringing it closer to €12 per hour. The upcoming raise is set to be implemented in four stages, with the first increase set for January a year afterwards. Case in Europe Molina (2021) report on eurofound.europa.eu that the analysis of wage-setting practices and wage developments in the EU27, Norway and the UK reveals several interesting trends, with relevant implications for future developments and the pace of economic recovery expected in 2021. According to Molina (2021), there are no signs of downward wage adjustment taking place so far. In most European countries, there were real wage increases during 2020, despite a fall in GDP. The state has played a key role through the roll-out of three types of policy interventions. First, governments aimed to maintain wages in the private sector through wage support schemes. Second, governments guaranteed real wage increases for public sector employees. In many countries, this meant public sector wages outpaced private sector wages, while in a small number of countries wage freezes have been implemented. Given the importance of the public sector for wage setting, this will most likely bring higher demands for wage increases to the next 2021 collective bargaining round in the private sector. 11 RAFFLES COLLEGE ECO211 – Principles of Macroeconomics ESSAY by Rana Azizah Ramadhani Finally, Molina (2021) found that minimum wages have increased in most EU27 countries, Norway and the UK for 2021. Granting higher minimum wages for 2021 is particularly relevant in the current context, as in several countries there are signs of growing earnings inequality caused by a stronger impact on labour-intensive, low-wage sectors such as Horeca and long-term care, where there is a predominance of young people, immigrant workers and women. Raising minimum wages will have a stronger impact on these groups, therefore contributing to reduce some of the inequalities introduced by the crisis. On the other hand, having higher minimum wages will spill over into collective bargaining, hence adding some tensions to the bargaining rounds due to take place in 2021. Case in US Schwitzer (2021) reported on americanprogress.org that while Congress must pass the federal Raise the Wage Act, state and local policymakers should also take their own steps to ensure that every single one of their workers receives at least $15 per hour. In addition to eliminating poverty-level wages, providing workers with more economic opportunity, and decreasing the need to subsidize low incomes through the safety net to meet basic needs,46 increasing the wage floor will provide an extra boost to the economy through the greater spending power of low-wage workers. And on the employment side, raising the minimum wage would increase worker productivity and reduce staff turnover,48 which decreases the costs of frequently hiring and training new staff. It is long past time that every town, city, and state in the country be held to a higher standard that prioritizes people’s financial security and well-being. The enormous benefits of helping workers earn a living wage will ultimately spur stronger economic growth and a more equitable society as the United States continues to recover from the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. 12 RAFFLES COLLEGE ECO211 – Principles of Macroeconomics ESSAY by Rana Azizah Ramadhani 3. ANALYSIS o How does a national minimum wage set in several countries? A national minimum wage is commonly conducted by countries’ statute based on particular factors including average aggregate labours’ income in the region, average firms’ revenue in the region and one region’s cost of living. Thus, a minimum wage in one country can have different range as factors listed above have different region economy productivity level. Germany is one of the countries that’s against different region national minimum wage system since 2015 as it encourages the low wage paid labours to have ‘appropriate’ revenues and to lower the welfare gap in the nation. o How does national minimum wage impact to employers, employee and government? A national minimum wage application has indeed different impacts to employers, employee and government. Some groups of employee can get a significant advantages as the rule allow them to have an ideal income for their welfare by doing enough effort (neither too much work nor less work) such as group of low wage paid workers. Employers might struggle to adjust with national minimum wage for reasons of labour cost that will directly affect production cost. The margin they will get will not be able to at highest level they would like to achieve. It’s one of the tool of government can achieve to prevent social welfare gap, by controlling labour’s exploitation by both public and private firms. In which government objection is that way, it gives the government advantages. o What impact has the National Minimum Wage on employment retention, hours and job in Germany? In Germany, a raise of national minimum wage to be placed the same amount since 2015 (8.50 euro/ hour in 2015) in every state in the nation, turned out to be not troubled as assumed by some experts and controversies. Instead, it decreased level of unemployment. A research found that the minimum wage in Germany had the highest positive impact on the wages of marginal workers, who experienced a 15.5 percentage points higher growth rate on account of the reform, followed by the full-time regularly employed with an additional increase in hourly wages of 7.8 percentage points. However, there is no impact of the minimum wage reform on monthly earnings could be detected when estimating the effect for these groups separately despite positive treatment effects for hourly wages in both of these groups. The absence of an effect may be attributed to a reduction in power (small sample size) after partitioning the sample into the socially insured and marginally employed. The minimum wage introduction not only increased wages, but also had a negative impact on average hours worked. o Has the higher minimum wages support job growth as the economy recovers from COVID-19 in the globally? There has not been found precise studies and evidences showing the progress of minimum wages support job growth as the economy recovers from COVID-19 around the world. But there are many assumptions stating that it will most likely to support job growth since most 13 RAFFLES COLLEGE ECO211 – Principles of Macroeconomics ESSAY by Rana Azizah Ramadhani people had been not working fully for the past two years. Several countries, based on evidence discussed previously, have been motivated to raise the minimum wage for economy growth as an act of COVID-19 recovery. In practice, it will relatively not easy to apply such law after the world’s struggle fighting the pandemic. However, higher minimum wages will surely support job growth as people are more motivated to earn income after two years of forced hibernation. 14 RAFFLES COLLEGE ECO211 – Principles of Macroeconomics ESSAY by Rana Azizah Ramadhani 4. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION SUMMARY (International Labour Organization, 2022) A minimum wage is defined as a minimum amount of remuneration that an employer is required to pay wage earners for the work performed during a given period, which cannot be reduced by collective agreement or an individual contract. International Labour Organization (2022) states that minimum wages is commonly set by statute, decision of a competent authority, a wage board, a wage council, or by industrial or labour courts or tribunals. Protecting workers against unduly low pay, helping ensure a just and equitable share of the fruits of progress to all, and a minimum living wage to all who are employed and in need of such protection are the main purpose of the minimum wage. (Eyraud and Saget, 2005) The minimum wage will have a positive effect on growth of employment, which in turn should result in higher employment, if the increase is non-inflationary. A large body of evidence— although not all of it—confirms that minimum wages reduce employment among low- wage, low-skill workers. The effect of minimum wage according to Eyraud and Saget (2005) can be twofold: • • a minimum wage increase protects the lowest-paid wage earners from inflation but through its impact on wages and public deficits, it risks accelerating the inflationary spiral by affecting wage costs and putting pressure on overall demand in which government handle this great caution. New research (2018) from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) has found the introduction of a uniform national minimum wage for the first time in Germany in 2015 did not lead to an increase in unemployment which shows that the business firms have actually the capacity to pay their workers more than they did. There has not been found precise studies and evidences showing the progress of minimum wages support job growth as the economy recovers from COVID-19 around the world. However, higher minimum wages will surely support job growth as people are more motivated to earn income after two years of forced hibernation. CONCLUSION A national minimum wage application in almost every country in the world has similarity that is motived by the willing of the country to protect labours’ exploitation and to provide them the suitable income so they can live well. A national minimum wage will have different implementation in every country as it will depend on the government ideology, system and economy level or status. Even though, it will be businesses firms concern to apply a national minimum wage as they might have the fear of not receiving excellent profit, it will be beneficial for the country as a whole. The benefit will be that the welfare of the country will be more easily achieved since it encourage the country to lower inequality level. 15 RAFFLES COLLEGE ECO211 – Principles of Macroeconomics ESSAY by Rana Azizah Ramadhani 5. REFERENCES Ahlfeldt, Gabriel, and Roth, Duncan and Seidel , Tobias. (2018) ‘Minimum wage in Germany did not lead to job losses’. Available at: https://www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-news-fromLSE/2018/06-June-2018/Introduction-of-minimum-wage-in-Germany-did-not-lead-to-job-losses (Accessed: 13 March 2022). Burauel et al. (2019) ‘The Impact of the German Minimum Wage on Individual Wages and Monthly Earnings’ Vol. 240 (Issue 2-3) [online]. Available at: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/jbnst-2018-0077/html (Accessed: 13 March 2022). Eyraud, François and Saget, Catherine. (2005) ‘The fundamentals of minimum wage fixing’ 1st edn. Geneva: Publication Bureau, International Labour Office. Heil, Hurbetus. (2020) ‘Germany to raise minimum wage despite pandemic’. Available at: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-to-raise-minimum-wage-despite-pandemic/a-5400519 (Accessed: 12 March 2022). International Labor Organization (2022) How to define a minimum wage. Available at: https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/wages/minimum-wages/definition/lang--en/index.htm (Accessed: 11 March 2022). Molina, Oscar. (2021) ‘Impact of the COVID-19 crisis wages and wage setting’. Available at: https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/article/2021/impact-of-the-covid-19-crisis-onwages-and-wage-setting. Neumark, David. (2018) ‘Employment effects of minimum wages – When minimum wages are introduced or raised, are there fewer jobs?’, volume (6v2) [online]. Available at: 10.15185/izawol.6.v2 (Accessed: 11 March 2022). Schwitzer, Justin. (2021) ‘Higher Minimum Wages Support Job Growth as the Economy Recovers From COVID-19’. Available at: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/higher-minimumwages-support-job-growth-economy-recovers-covid-19/ (Acessed: 13 March 2022). 16