It’s not just the U.S. that has been struggling to raise the minimum wage, the Swiss have seemed to hit a ceiling as well. Currently the Swiss minimum wage hovers at around $15 an hour. The proposal to raise the minimum wage lost with 76.3% of voters deciding against it. Reasons cited for the proposal’s failure echoed similarly to those who argued against a $10 minimum wage in the U.S. Small and medium sized businesses make up roughly two thirds of employment in Switzerland, and business owners reasoned that they would not be able to stay open with such a high cost of employment pay.
Switzerland’s Economy Minister, Johann Schneider-Ammann, stated “accepting the initiative would have led to job cuts in economically weak, rural areas.” Unfortunately it seems that those removed from urban epicenters are often the first demographic to feel the sting of a struggling economy. Nine out of ten full-time workers in Switzerland already make more than the proposed raise. Private companies argue that raising the minimum wage would force employers to lay off employees as well as have the remaining employees asking for a pay increase themselves.
Political views have also played into the failure of the recent proposal. Laurent Bernhard, a political sciences researcher at the University of Bern, reasoned “In German-speaking Switzerland, especially in the countryside, there’s a strong view that the state shouldn’t get involved too much.” There are many who reason that the majority of hard working individuals already make a salary that they can live on. Therefore why would there be the need for the law when the issue is pretty much already solved.
But for whatever reasons the proposal failed, the point remains the same. The cost of living is going up. At the same time the disparity between the wealthy and poor are moving further and farther apart. It is a pattern that has not only been noticed in the U.S. but countries in Europe as well. If raising the minimum wage is not the answer to closing the gap, then those who vote against such bills should come up with another reasonable solution.
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