NMW to increase again next year to £12.21 ph.

Or perhaps the lowest paid could be allowed to earn enough to afford to use the products and services they labour over and we could have less inequality. The lowest paid tend to spend their whole pay packet and a greater proportion of that in their local economy.

And unfortunately this sums it up. Where the skilled/unskilled pay gap is being eaten away at where is the incentive to do well, to work hard?

If business owners are struggling why continue ti run that business? Where prices increase to compensate in places like supermarkets the cost of living will increase, those not being blessed with 6/16% pay rises will feel poorer. The luxuries like eating out, beauty treatments etc, many of which will be done away with, ironically the very businesses likely to be paying minimum wage will then fold.

We have built a service industry economy, many of those services are luxuries. To maintain this there needs to be lots of people earning substantially more than the people whose services they use if they are to continue to be able to afford those services.

Labour has set us off on a downward spiral of economic decline. It’s disgusting!

Unfortunately labour intensive low paid business really struggle. Lots of small labour intensive businesses will close because of the costs. The government doesn't understand this. I own such a business (hairdressing salon) and it is getting harder to keep a pay gap between unskilled and skilled staff. Sometimes I don't even pay myself the minimum wage. In a competitive sector you can only put the prices up so much.

And your answer appears to be to accelerate the problem. Nice work 👍

Many companies in the UK are already doing this and it’s never going to change.This isn’t new information.

What do you mean by this? I’ve not heard this turn of phrase?

If you can’t afford to pay your staff £12ph, you shouldn’t have a business.

The increase in NMW from £11.44 to £12.21 on its own will be swallowed up many (most?) employers. The problem comes when it is coupled with the employers NI increase in today's budget.

A part time worker (20hrs/week) currently costs the employer £11,900 per year + £386 employers national insurance - a total of £12,286. From April 2025, the cost to an employer will be £12,700 + £1,155 NI - total of £13,855. This is an extra £1,569 the employer has to find - an increase of 12.8%, and this will be much harder for employers to swallow.

So you agree that PP has been hounded by UC?

It always astounds me that people are happy to leave their kids (who they are supposed to love) to be looked after by someone they look down on. WTF is that about!!!

Think we might have similar bosses! I could write a book about him.

Its people like you that make me wish essential workers had gone on strike during at least one of the lockdowns.

Its people like you that make me wish essential workers had gone on strike during at least one of the lockdowns.

You can be out of the country for up to 4 weeks.

Just now much travelling outside the UK do you think someone who is not on UC can afford?

And you had to show in the JC and provide bank statements for checks?

In exchange for a healthy monthly payment?

How much UC do yo get? You don’t have to answer, or course if it makes you feel uncomfortable for some reason.

Of course not but to get sanctioned you've got to have done a number of things wrong. I've been unemployed and on UC and never once got sanctioned nor did I feel hounded by them. I missed an appointment once, notified them through my journal, got told not to do it again or I'll be sanctioned or considered for sanctions, and that was the matter closed.

So carers, childcare workers, teaching assistants, none of whom will require a degree to do their jobs, aren't worth a decent wage?

If everyone on NMW suddenly decided to 'better' themselves by getting a degree and jacking in their jobs as cleaners, dinner ladies, childcare workers, hospital porters etc etc, we'd be screwed. Because their roles are 'worth' far more than many earning excessive salaries.

Social workers are not on a MW salary.
Anyone who feels hard done by certainly can go and work in a shop on MW, as it’s clearly so easy.

I find the argument against paying people £12.21 ph repugnant.

Which hightlights that the problem probably isn't actually wages.

Its job opportunities and housing costs.

Housing has been driven hugely by four things - the rise in the number of second and holiday homes, inefficient use of the housing we have got (older couples an singles in large family homes and families in small houses and flats) and the rise of the buy to let industry and availability of work locally.

Seeing houses as an investment opportunity an a way to make money lies at the heart of cost of living issues. Even with stagnating wages, the population growth we have had and internal migration patterns, the rate at which housing costs has gone up has far outstripped the rate it should have.

Some of the places with the biggest issues with housing are those where young people have left to go to cities! Places like Cornwall and the Lakes. You can add a few quid to the NMW in these places, say 'look we did aren't we amazing', but you aren't solving shit for people on minimum wage in these places. They still haven't got a hope in hell of finding somewhere to live.

Then you've got places like the NE, where theres shit all left. The NMW will go much further here and you've got a decent chance of getting a house if you are employed cos no fucker else wants to live there. But thats the catch, there's no sodding jobs, cos no one invested there. So people are living on benefits and there are no jobs to find. So raising the NMW only serves to hit these people hardest of all because the cost of living is liable to increase so that supermarkets maintain their profit margins. Food banks will have less donations because those in the middle are also more squeezed because their wages HAVEN'T risen.

The issue is about the richest getting richer, but anyone who didn't own property by 2007 or had a significant inheritence since is significantly disadvantaged. 2007 marks the last housing market crash... (the cash rich bought up property whilst those who didn't have mortgages faced tighter restrictions and couldn't get property).

The market crash led to a decade of stagnanted wages whilst there was this huge move into property made possible by the crash for those who had money.

For years its been said that the lack of investiment in provincial towns has massively driven politics. Its what all the red wall/ blue wall stuff was about. People wanting jobs and services (yes like your local pub too) rather than boarded up buildings. The cost of living is part of that but actually if there are jobs and services available people who are struggling are significantly happier because theres still a sense of community. Its about the sense of abandonment by government.

In terms of business, the number of business peaked in 2020. Since then costs have risen considerably and taxes/wages have gone up.

It makes no sense to therefore try and hit small businesses that provide services in local areas harder. It will push people towards more radical politics because of the sense of being abandoned.

I think its note worthy to already acknowledge how many businesses have popped in the last couple of years. These are the latest government figures which were published earlier this month:

Between 2023 and 2024:

• the total business population decreased by 56,000 (1.0%)
• numbers of employing businesses decreased by 18,000 (1.2%), whilst non-employing business numbers decreased by 38,000 (0.9%)
• the decrease in non-employing businesses resulted from a decrease of 43,000 (1.5%) unregistered businesses, offset by an increase in non-employing registered businesses of 5,000 (0.4%)
• numbers of registered businesses decreased by 13,000 (0.5%)

Whilst we might want to improve wages and improve quality of life, we don't actually improve cost of living issues by raising the NMW. It sounds great to a lot of people, BUT IT DOESNT SOLVE ANY OF THE UNDERLYING ISSUES, and arguably it makes them worse in many areas.

Unless the government manages to tackle multinationals and housing then its all totally fucking meaningless deck chair shuffling, which I genuinely think will cause most problems for those right at the bottom.

We have a small business employing 8 staff, 2 on minimum wage.
Every time it goes up we have to raise the other 6 as well to keep the differential.
As a result of this we are having to do away with overtime, resulting in lower productivity and therefore sales and profit.
For the record I work unpaid and DH has not had a pay rise in 9 years.
This is going to be tough ....