To think minimum wage is dire. What hourly rate would you work for?

That's not low!

I'd work for minimum wage if I had to. I wouldn't have a choice! I don't have savings to fall back on.

I earn £29k currently but if I lost my job and the only option was minimum wage I'd do it.

The cost of living crisis only started in 2021. So minimum wage did exist. I dont know if minimum wage 2019 had equal buying power to minimum wage 2025, though. Rent, energy and food are much more expensive and make up a bigger chunk of minimum wage spending so I'd think inflation for this group has been very high.

I earned £2.30 p/h age 16 in a local toy shop. I moved to Early Leaning Centre on £3.33 an hour for the same work. The thing is, NMW is essential, but for someone who lives with parents, pays no bills etc it's great but for someone with rent, bills, kids etc it doesn't go far.

For those who have wondered what they can do without qualifications etc, cleaners in my area charge £15-20 p/h. Obviously hard to make that a full time job due to distances between jobs and such but maybe an option for some. Advertise on local Facebook pages etc so no overheads and the clients supply their own equipment/products.

I don't think minimum wage is poor, what I do think is happening is severe wage stagnation (they say 20 years and counting for wage stagnation now) and you now have qualified, experienced, staff, with significant roles and responsibilities on just a few thousand pounds more than those on minimum wage roles.

After graduating in 1996 I earned 30k within a couple of years, just doing basic IT support.

30 years later 30k is still a good wage in the area where I live: about what CEOs of local charities earn! Wage stagnation has been shocking.

Personally I don't work for less than £400 a day doing desk-based self-employed work: usually around £500 a day. I'm quite disabled now and would rather be employed but don't think I'll be well enough to ever work full-time again.

When? I don't remember that

I often wonder this too. I started work pre minimum wage and there was so much more wage variation. I left one employer for another as the other paid twice as much for basically the same role. Then the first employer had to put thier wages up too. but minimum wage seems to be like price fixing at a bargain rate. Everyone knows the minimum you can get away with and therefore more and more jobs get sucked into low.

This. Too many jobs which are actually skilled are paying minimum wage or close to it.

That's very giddy assuming people actually have a choice at times . How many low/unskilled people are realistically going to be able to choose to earn anything above minimum wage

People say this like everyone gets UC. If you are single with no DC, there is no top up

Excellent post and example of what is happening a million times over. We need to be very careful not to let the current trajectory and economic inequality get even worse. It is the path to societal collapse.

Interesting point. I betva labourer on a building site gets more ... it's because it's mostly women doing these jobs.
Train drivers getting paid more than nurses is also appalling.

Yes, I was in a flat share until I was 30. I was in a skilled job and earned what I considered a decent wage but I was single.

There should be a focus on making sure that everyone earns a living wage. At the moment workers support business owners and companies by working too cheaply - I think that this can be managed only through legislation. Of course many minimum wage jobs are seen as women's work - the way that the wage structure is set up is nothing more than a misogynistic construct and ignores the fact that raising the floor for women raises the floor for everyone.
The country I live in currently has a small government department that does work that is seen as very valuable. Lots of the jobs require people with very specialized skills and PhD level education, plus a willingness to live in remote places. People who do this work are incredibly passionate. The disgrace is that these workers are hugely underpaid and leaders of the department have said that the only saving grace is that the wages are so low that the families in question are eligible for high levels of family tax credit. So this government department is being heavily propped up by social support. It's a disgrace. Wonder if anyone can guess the country and the department.

There's no evidence of that at all. If the market rate for their labour is higher then they can get a job elsewhere. In fact the market rate is lower hence why we have minimum wage. Also few employers are "billionaires"

Higher wages just result in employers cutting staff and automating production.

There was no legal minimum wage when I first started working in the mid-90s and I earned £3.50 an hour, which was a standard entry-wage for most junior office jobs at the time.

A single person working full time on minimum wage would not be entitled to uc top up. It's usually because they have children or are not working full time that they are entitled to claim

I'm not on minimum wage but all I'll say is remember who we needed when we went into lockdown. It was the minimum wage/low paid workers that kept the country going and they don't get enough recognition or pay for what they do. The carers, retail workers, bin men etc were essential and we shouldn't forget that. Someone has to do the jobs that people deem as unskilled and if you are fortunate enough to get paid more than the minimum wage then consider yourself lucky. I know people will say they studied hard for their wage but not everyone gets the same opportunities to better themselves and they have to go out and earn whatever they can to make ends meet.

Their pay will have to go up in April but that then puts them on an equal footing with practitioners , so where is the incentive then to do that role?

The gap between grades has been eroding for ages and nothing is ever done to address it.

So you feel sorry for yourself, not those who are actually on a low wage.

I’ve not looked into this in great detail, but I do wonder if the introduction of minimum wage in the nineties has actually hindered wage growth. I used to live in a different country and wages were extremely competitive for jobs we consider minimum wage jobs in the UK (e g hospitality and retail and care). They had to be competitive to attract the best candidates. I’m sure it wasn’t perfect, and many construction workers were low paid migrants. But yeah, UK salaries seem to have slowed against inflation since the introduction of minimum wage. I think that’s because we assign value to roles in a different way. Anyway, just musings.

I work in legal services, approx 20% of our income is from legal aid and legal help work, it used to be much higher than this before the cuts. A lot of it is work for low rate fixed fees set by central government that was barely profitable 5 years ago. When costs go up there isn’t really much we can do in those departments except find efficiencies and push the private paying work. The way things are going people will struggle to find a solicitor who offers legal aid even if you qualify. The 2 people I know of going through redundancy at the moment also work in legal services and a related field. One firm is closing entirely and another has cut whole departments that will no longer be profitable come April, so my friend who works in legal accounts is affected as they won’t need as many of them due to the reduction in bills and transactions. It’s going to be a bumpy few years.

Nobody would accept minimum wage if they had a choice. It's very sad that many hard-working people can't live on their wages.