NMW to increase again next year to £12.21 ph.

I think my perspective comes from having several jobs one of which is minimum wage. I actually prefer that one but do the others as they pay varying amounts more. The one just above minimum i really think I will ditch for more hours in the minimum wage one. But I would ditch the minimum wage one if I could get enough hours in my best paid role.

The thing to remember is the tax free allowance makes up more of a lower wage, so even though a role might be say 2k more, the whole lot is taxed as you've used your allowance.

I think a lot of people on this post are thinking of jobs that pay 35, 40k not just a tiny bit above minimum.

It's the modern version of printing money, which always ends well.

Spot on and those in jobs on MW/NLW have appalling terms and conditions; in complete contrast to those in highly paid autonomous jobs.

Simply put just continually increasing NMW is just driving inflation

I think this is so true but people on higher wages don’t want to admit that. Also in the retail sector being treated like dirt or verbally abused by some customers.

Well, good for you

Band 2 are GP receptionists, health records clerks, porters, cleaners, a huge portion of the HCAs, catering staff and MLAs

How do you fix that though? Without saying every home in the UK needs to be revalued by 2030 and forever more can't cost any more than that price how do you fix it?

And yes, nail on head to all the PPs who highlighted that if an employee has to rely on state-funded top-ups to make their pay then shame on the Employer. Tax Credits were great, UC not so much.

I honestly hope that any proposed increases don't apply to the truly Small Businesses though, less than 30 full-time employees, I suggest. Many small businesses keep people in work - as well as often actually 'producing' something that people really do want. Not some mass-produced shite that people 'think' they want.

My husband says similar. Usually hes going to get a night shelf stacking job locally.
I am forever reminding him that it's a physical job, and he is getting older. The people that employ shelf stackers dont want almost 60 year old men working for them doing that job. Its already covered by young men who the hours suit and are capable of 8 hours of heavy lifting. Locally can still mean needing a car. The money is shit for the role. The hours are shit. You work year round, no time off at Christmas. No nice bank holidays and no time off in lieu or double wages.

And in his case, a boss who will expect 30 cages emptied and shelved properly every night.

When you get to the nitty gritty of these kinds of roles, it's not all that cracking.

It will just drive prices up, making the new wage worse than the old one.
This government is just as short-sighted and incompetent as the last.

Agreed! Tesco for example can afford it, but they will pass the cost onto customers so won’t effect them unless people cut back on what they buy even more, however they will still be spending the same

This. The bloody problem is housing. Its too expensive. But let's make employers the enemy eh.

So easy to say

Why this kind of bitter reply? It's true what OP is saying, why would people want higher levels of responsibility for an ever closing gap? The NMW & LW rising is great, but the smaller the gap between that and other jobs the less appealing the other jobs because; plenty of which are essential to society, just as some of those on NMW are. The issue is that these jobs above minimum haven't risen as much if barely at all, not that the lowest paid get a bit more. This is completely ignoring the reality on employers etc as well.

Is it daft? Families who are just over the benefits threshold and own their own home are going to no longer have surplus income to use retail stores, they won't be able to afford tradespeople to repair their homes, they may give up on the cleaner, stop their child's dance lessons.... Can you not see the impact this is going to have on a wider scale?

With that well reasoned argument, I take it you were one of them!

If people lose their job because employers can’t afford the increase, they will get universal credit anyway so I don’t know why people think this will reduce the benefits bill

Don't be daft.

Well, it's about to get a whole lot worse.

Yes people who work full time should not have to rely on benefits. But looking at most people's expenditure housing costs are one of the biggest problems.

We are still in the current one.

Yet another way that the child free are screwed over

The Labour Party are utterly ridiculous. They are about to make Liz Truss’s government look like economic whizz kids.

Push up minimum wage- costs passed on so makes life even more expensive wiping out any increase.

Coupled with the anticipated rise in employers NI many businesses won’t be able to afford to employ people leading to higher unemployment

Honestly -who the hell voted these 16 year old socialist worker sellers into office????

Or not supporting
I don't get UC obviously because no children so I'm expected to be fine on min wage

People aren't seeing the correlation between higher NMW and a higher cost of living are they. The staffing costs will be passed onto everyone else by way of higher costs for food, fuel, energy, care, council tax.... NMW is one of those things that's great on paper but the reality is it just accelerates financial decline. I give it 5 years before another economic crisis hits.