Singapore's current challenges need new ideas as old economic models fail

A tripartite work group is looking into ways to increase the wages of more low-income workers. Indeed, there should be new ideas and approaches to some of these longstanding socio-economic issues.

It is unlikely that the deliberations of the Tripartite Workgroup on Lower-Wage Workers - chaired by Senior Minister of State for Manpower Zaqy Mohamad and which includes employers, union leaders and senior civil servants - will lead to a minimum wage.

PAP MPs seemed united in the view that a blanket minimum wage, which Workers' Party MPs have mooted, could ultimately hurt the very people it is supposed to help. Set the bar above the market clearing level of wages and the supply of jobs would fall, leading to low-wage workers becoming no-wage workers, as one PAP MP put it.