Many nations have a minimum wage to protect low-income workers. But companies would just pay that with the salary not increasing thereafter.

Singapore has the Progressive Wage Model (PWM), which Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam calls "minimum wage-plus" (House sees spirited debate on issue of minimum wage, Sept 4).

It is a hybrid model with a mandated salary floor differentiated by industry sectors, and accompanied by a career ladder for the worker to earn higher wages over time through skills upgrading.

This is not an argument of which is better. The question to ask should be: What is the best way to raise the incomes of the working poor and yet avoid the negative consequences of a minimum wage policy, ensuring that workers do not lose their ability to stay employed?

A minimum wage is a blanket salary floor value across sectors. But what is an acceptable minimum wage?

An arbitrary minimum wage value may end up causing more unemployment. This would hurt the lowest-income group instead of helping them. This is prevalent in many countries with a minimum wage.

The PWM overcomes this by providing the flexibility of having different salary floors for different sectors. In Singapore, it is implemented in three sectors - cleaning, security and landscape - and wages for these workers have increased.

It would be good if Singapore can move quickly to expand this to other sectors. This is what we should be working towards, not debating to implement a blanket minimum wage.

Another important consideration, in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic, is to ask if having a universal minimum wage is helpful during a recession.

When companies are tightening their belts and jobs are scarce, a minimum wage may push them to shutter if wage cost pressures become too great and there is no room for wage negotiation.

At the end of the day, the best insurance against unemployment is employment. For that, we need to balance giving fair wages and having jobs. If a minimum wage ends up turning away companies, the jobs will disappear.

If the Workers' Party feels strongly about a minimum wage, it should move beyond a critique of outcomes to examining the merits and demerits of the policy measures to help the poor and address inequality. Show why these policies are inadequate and propose alternatives.

Singaporeans are not ideologically fixated, so if a better policy solution can be found, we will do the right and pragmatic thing to help citizens live a better life.

Pang Shi Jie