Germany is the most expensive country overall because of its very high basic wages.

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Foxconn has raised basic wages four times in the past three years, in some areas doubling the starting-level pay.

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Basic wages in Greece have fallen by 22%, there has been fiscal consolidation and the private-sector labour market has been reformed.

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In some cases it started off as a form of wage restraint in the dark days of the 1990s: companies cut basic wages and employees hoped that performance-related pay might make up the difference, which it did not always do.

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These women work tirelessly to feed and bathe our nation's senior citizens, serve as a go-between with family and doctors, count medication, even take care of pets, and yet they are denied basic wages, let alone benefits, worker protections and pathways to citizenship.

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In too many countries, inefficient companies are shielded from market pressures, wages are too high, basic infrastructure is lacking.

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When wages grow fast enough the basic human needs are more than adequately met and the next thing people do is buy a better house.

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The most basic models of labor supply and demand would suggest that a bigger labor pool depresses wages, and indeed this is the argument taken up by many opponents of more open immigration policy.

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