Mana’s inflation policy

I guess economic literacy is not high on Mana’s wishlist.  They say:

Immediately increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour (1 April 2012) and peg it at two-thirds of the average wage (1 April 2013).

I guess someone has to outbid Labour/Greens who think higher wages come from legislation rather than economic growth. But Mana’s policy is even more stupid than the norm. Think about their pegging it to two thirds of the average wage.

In June 2011, it was $24.78, so two thirds is $16.52. So Mana’s policy is it should be illegal for a 16 year old to be hired for less than $34,500 a year.

But their policy will lead to never-ending increases, as if you increase the minimum wage, then you automatically increase the average wage. So even if there was nil wage growth for everyone else, the minimum wage would be going up.

If their policy was to peg it to the median wage, then it would just be moderately stupid rather than idiotically stupid.

I don’t know why parties of the left bother with all this in between crap. Why don’t they just come out and announce a minimum wage of $25/hr?