the discussions on minimum wage in the Bahamas are clouded by ignorance and the influence of a dishonest merchant class and its agents (typically young men wearing bow ties and pretending to be economists). You cannot take the classical position on minimum wages (that they negate job creation) and apply it to a country like the Bahamas, where jobs are created by external investment, NOT local businessmen. In the Bahamas, the higher the minimum wage, the more money goes into consumption and the more the economy is boosted.

which is where the tax is right now right? Even if they need to change it, there would be something in income that could be taxed.

Another lawyer wannabe economist who never ran a business or had to make payroll for more people than himself. I suppose the 50+ people on our payroll don't fall under the category of job creation nor do we or they contribute anything to the local economy as obviously we are of that dishonest merchant class that pays no taxes, exploits the unwashed horde and encourages child labour.

For your information, I have created businesses, one of which is an international telecommunications venture that actually brings in foreign exchange. How much foreign exchange does your merchant outfit bring in?? Does it have overseas customers paying money abroad for services provided in the Bahamas, which is then imported as money (not Central bank coupons) into the Bahamas? Or does it sell wares and circulate money within the domestic economy. If the latter, then it creates zero employment, but acts rather as a middleman between the consumer, whose behaviour creates economic activity and the profit that results from that activity.

Within the domestic economy, one thing creates employment: CONSUMPTION. The dollar spent by the consumer creates the demand that the businessman parasitically (I do not mean that in a bad sense, but a nuetral one) benefits from by making profit. OF COURSE he has to employ people to do the actual labour necessary to actualize that profit (unless he is going to do it all himself), but he employs no more than is absolutely necessary and constantly exerts pressure against expending on labour where he can, so as to maximise profits for himself. But that is no more 'creating employment' than the tax man 'creates' revenues!

Consumers grow the economy and boost employment. If wages were doubled, consumers would have more disposable income to spend more in the economy, creating more jobs and further enriching you merchants.

Sadly, you do not realize this because you are so submersed in this false paradigm about what role you play in the economy. But it is proved over and over again, not least by the huge increase in the profits of Bay Street merchants' businesses which resulted from the labour reforms and growth of the middle class which the same Bay Street peope so vigorously resisted.

As a person who is an employer and is involved in REAL economic activity, I would never pay anyone in this country less than 300 per week.

i am in agreement with andrewa above.

Why are they worried about about raising minimum wage if they promised SOVEREIGN FUND? o. Does "the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and International Organisation of Employers (IEO), the Inter-American Bank and CARICOM state officials" know about that? one is a maybe ay.
How about then since they MAYBE won't get this SOVEREIGN FUND, raise minimum wage fully for at least companies that fit the VAT bracket, then when/ IF it reach, don't pay them nothing at all.

Richest black country gdp per capita. Richest in the Caribbean. 3rd richest in the region. But it was just $150 a wk when it cost how much to eat each day here again??

As a local business , you'd want more people to have more money to spend DUH.
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/co…

add a $20,000 new car to the expense list since duty ain't drop. ya forget you asked these $150/wk ppl to buy that.

You got it!

If you want to understand the closed, myopic and deluded mentality of the merchant class in this country, just go back to the famed Burma road riots of 1942.

The merchants (who no doubt saw themselves as 'job creators') colluded to prevent the US contractor who was building the new airport from paying their Bahamian labourers the same as their white US labourers. Apparently, they felt it would lead to wage pressures in their own businesses..

But what the total idiots did not see was that the extra money made by workers in a closed island economy only had one place to go (back into the pockets of the merchants themselves).

It is the same thing today. So long as they feel relatively wealthier than the common man, the traditional merchant has no interest in the fact that boosting disposable income at the BOTTOM end (which all goes into consumption) will benefit us all, ESPECIALLY the merchant.

Or $4 million on Stronger Bahamas is equivalent to 27,000 employed for a week. A week without crime.

Government could stop wasting money and add more employees to their understaffed roster.
God knows that $20million in the hands of Urban Renewal may disappear.

The government should not hire any new employees. They already have enough people doing little to nothing. That $4m and every other dollar that they are wasting needs to go into education and training. If you want a life without crime, then we have to educate the youth. Simply growing the government is part of what got us into the broken system we now live in.