That's not precisely what I mean Steephie.

I mean that I believe that possibly, the minimum wage itself should be increased for more expensive zones and decreased for less expensive zones. This may help the industrialization of areas where things currently don't go so well (I thought the Dutch provinces Drenthe and Overijssel were examples where such measures might help)

lower wages in rural areas might discourage workers - who don't want to earn less even with the lower cost of living.

Minimum wage doesn't affect those who can afford to commute (live in cheap areas and work in expensive ones) So this will only affect who? the poorest workers in rural areas. There may be more work for them, and that will serve to push up populations in rural areas, and increase the cost of living...

i'm not sure at all; but a problem (in the US) is states competing to offer the cheapest labour, because the lower your minimum wage the more likely a factory is to setup in your region. This effectively amounts to a race to the bottom (worst conditions for workers in a given state) Would this encourage Dutch companies to move to rural areas - and extend their supply lines which would amount to an inefficiency?

I know that there is a higher starting wage for teachers in London, as contrasted with the rest of England - for two reasons, London schools have a pretty bad reputation, so nobody wants to teach in them, and London has a higher cost of living... I don't know whether this is a fair comparison as it doesn't deal with minimum wage workers, but it is the only case i know of which specifically targets regional cost of living.

London weighting applies to most civil servants, airline workers, the police etc. But as you rightly say these arn't min wage jobs.

The minimum wage is meant to be the floor price, The market should be able to cope with everything else, if wages need to be higher in Amsterdam or London or wherever then the market will set the rate.

In the UK we have a lot of EU nationals working on farms, the locals don't seem to want to work for min wage, lowering it wouldn't help anyone.

The locals would be delighted to work for minimum wage. They are not given the opportunity because the jobs are advertised directly to the EU nationals and the locals never see them.

I think it's a bad idea simply because there would be competition between different cities and such once you implement different minimum wages for different places. besides, there's enough place on the countryside if people want to live there because it's cheaper.

Where do you draw the line? I say right where it's drawn.

Cities are more expensive because they are more wanted. Supply and demand. I see no reason to influence that since it's working just fine. The cities aren't too overcrowded and the countryside isn't the middle of nowhere IMO.

As long as minimum wage inflates like the currency, it is a sustainable living wage. In a place like NYC for example where cost of living is that much higher, the commute from outside the city is typically pretty easy, so I'm not sure it needs to be significantly raised. Typically this shouldn't be a local issue anyway or else, like ora said, that'll just set up a regional competition and minimum wage will just drop right off the charts.

Then again I guess the same argument could be made for the globalized economy.

Exactly, bo, the question might very well be: are we sending this job to a competing village in Holland, or to China?

Well, looking long term, China's system is bound to run out of fuel eventually. Thinking shortsightedly (as in >20 years), the only way to control a global economy and restrict it from outsourcing everything into China, India, and other cheap labor sources is to establish a global minimum wage, which the United States *should* support since it can't compete with China and India in that regard. I don't think that's what you're asking though.

If people were really worried about losing jobs to China they would stop buying Chinese goods where there is a local alternative. It is only Capitalist greed that has led to the growth of China, the need for more profit, not for better quality, better Customer Service, better delivery times, better labour relations, etc, etc
This is why Capitalism is not sustainable in the long-term, you can't just give all the money to the rich people and expect the money merry-go-round to continue indefinitely. That's why God invented taxes ......

@Nbabay, i believe you'll find man invented God so that he could invent taxes...

That God knew what he was doing, let someone else take the wrap for the unpopular stuff ..... they don't call him the Almighty for nothing