I had no idea how much the minimum wage was in Australia until I read this article in The Australian newspaper and couldn’t believe my eyes:
The ACTU chief said the $21.66-a-week increase would give low-income employees more purchasing power but applied only to about 20per cent of the workforce on minimum rates.
He said the full 4.15per cent increase – slightly above the running inflation rate – would only apply to about 100,000 out of the total 1.3million people who were paid the minimum wage because this group received the lowest rate of $522.12 a week, or $13.74 an hour. The rest, he said, were on higher rates. [The Australian]
Now I know why no one leaves any tips in Australia when the minimum wage is $13.74 an hour. I can remember when I was working at McDonald’s back in the US years ago and was being paid the minimum wage of $4.25 an hour. Currently the US minimum wage is $6.27 which is a bit higher, but no where near as high as Australia’s.
However, this may help to also explain, along with all the taxes why the cost of living in Australia is so much higher then in America.
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