Minimum wage rise to go ahead despite elections

Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein on Tuesday approved the legislative move meant to anchor a three-phase minimum wage hike between 2015 and 2017, as proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also the acting finance minister.

The minimum wage in Israel currently stands at 4,300 shekels ($1,087). The first phase of the plan, scheduled to take effect in April, will see the minimum wage rise to NIS 4,650 ($1,174). The second phase, set for July 2016, will see it rise to NIS 4,825 ($1,220). And the third and final phase, scheduled to take effect in January 2017, will see it rise to NIS 5,000 ($1,263).

Weinstein approved the minimum wage rise outline agreed upon by Netanyahu and Histadrut labor federation Chairman Avi Nissankoren in December. The attorney-general had initially barred the move because doing so before the March 17 elections would have required the use of a special Economy and Trade Ministry order, rather than comprehensive legislation. But Tuesday's ruling has cleared the way for the government to promote a relevant bill regardless of the elections.

Nissankoren welcomed the ruling, saying, "This is a very important social message in our fight to reduce the gaps in Israeli society."

Meanwhile, the Central Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday published its wage data for October, noting that the average wage in Israel was NIS 9,161 ($2,315), a drop of 3.5 percent, or NIS 322 ($81), from September.

The data showed that some 1.5 million Israelis earned less than the median income, which currently stands at NIS 6,600 ($1,667). Of this group, some 600,000 workers earned the minimum wage.