To think raising NMW is a good thing

Yeah... you may do. We all have bills to pay. Also maybe you haven't nursed for 15 years yet.

You know what makes me laugh.

All the people who say "If you can't afford to pay the wage increases, national insurance increases, pension increases yadda yadda then your business is unsuccessful and should go under" labour under the delusion that they are nice kind, good, left leaning principled people who want The Workers, who are being exploited by the nasty businesses, to become less poor. What they are actually espousing is proper capitalist theory i.e. that businesses complete to provide the best (cheapest) service to the consumer, and if they fail they go under, leaving the ones who have survived to forge ahead.

Can they see no irony in that?

If I was a patient id much rather see a nurse who enjoyed their job

So 25 isn't very young for management in shops and fast food joints.

This is my concern. I’m a teacher of 25 years - we are finding it so hard to recruit. Our latest PGCE teacher is leaving as she sees the stress we deal with and the starting salary just isn’t worth it - it’ll be even worse when the NMW and post graduate jobs decreases.

The person I know is 25 (friend of a DC) He's on £30k. Did retail all throughout uni and has now been working there FT since.

I’m sorry you don’t like your job but I can still be outraged about the amount of work required to become a nurse and then the massive amount of responsibilities is not properly recognised whilst unskilled workers are quickly catching up and how this will definitely not help with recruitment or retention.

Not sure why I am being jumped on here for actually enjoying my job 🙄

Then I can only assume you don’t need the money? I’ve been a nurse for 30 years and I loathe it (not the patients the pressure). I only stay for the money and my pension. I cannot wait for the day I can fuck off - 11 years and counting. I do not do it for altruistic reasons and the nhs prays on people who do. More fool them.

Such a blinkered view.

My local pub did not make a profit last year. The increase in NMW and NI this year then hurt them badly.

They've frozen recruitment and are working with a skeleton staff as much as possible.

They simply cannot just increase their prices - why? Because people just don't have the disposable income to spend. So then they have no customers.

No customers = no business. No business = no employees getting their minimum wage page or otherwise.

Yes, it's great, we should be paying people a living wage, I am all for that, but people do need to understand that there are consequences of these increases.

Businesses exist to make a profit, if they're not making one, then they're gone.

I chose this career despite the poor wage because the job brings me immense joy and satisfaction, I’m a community nurse, I genuinely don’t do it for the money but my points still stand.

At management level I assume.

Obviously she is. Take a local takeaway for example ( one shop not a chain)

As well as the wage increases there has been a hello of a jump in utilities, insurance etc over the last few years. The price of lamb is ridiculous and all other food stuffs jumped in price And less customers as people can't afford to eat them so often

Really" raking it in "

Absolutely agree. I’m the daughter of teachers, I was a teenager in the 80s, my parents were very comfortable, we had plenty of holidays and hobbies and moved to a larger house when they both got promotions to Head of Department. That house now is worth 1.75 million.

But raising the minimum wage won’t help that.

Well they are team leaders. Ctms arent on that.

I get trying to live on minimum wage is hard and although I’m fine, I worry very much for my children and how on Earth they will manage.

But can you understand that all minimum wage increases mean is that the cost of absolutely everything goes up? Just as it did when NI increased. So you actually won’t have any more money in your pocket at all once you’ve bought food, clothes, paid bills.

I am not wanting to be patronising at all but I think it’s really important at the moment that people understand what all these moves mean in actual terms, not what government’s want you to see.

What the government need is policies to actually stabilise businesses, stop them wondering when the next shock will come and feel confident in growth and investment. The way this government (and I voted for them) I can’t see a way out of spiralling inflation.

This debate seems to be missing a big piece of the puzzle.

30 years ago a skilled man (CNC Operative or similar) could earn £15k. This was considered a good wage capable of fully supporting himself, kids and SAHM wife. With overtime luxuries were possible, annual holidays, many contributed to additional voluntary pension contributions, share save schemes, etc.

Now "A CNC operator's salary in the UK varies by experience, but entry-level positions average around £20,000 to £25,000 annually, while experienced operators can earn between £35,000 and £42,000 or more. Factors like skills,"

Even with both parents working times are tough.

Wages doesn't seem to be the main factor more increasing COL. Cheap imports. Closing UK businesses. Tax loopholes for overseas businesses operating in the UK.

YABU, the majority of employers in this country are small and medium sized businesses. They aren't fat cats sitting in a corner office they are people trying to support their own families while keeping a business afloat in increasingly hostile financial circumstances.

This will just lead to fewer people being employed. Nothing good is going to come of being so aggressively anti growth.

There are a lot of people on this thread who clearly don't understand how many small and indie businesses work. A lot of indie businesses are not run by fat cats but by creatives who want to bring something unique to the community whether it is a shop, cafe, gallery or bar. I own one and have done for twenty years. For many of those years I worked alone, often for seven days a week, building it from scratch. Because people liked the business it got bigger and I couldn't manage it on my own so I employed students and graduates who were training in similar creative fields. Many of them use my business to support themselves while at uni and then as a stepping stone when they have left and don't have another job yet. I have always paid just above the living wage and in fact I pay all of my staff the same whatever their age as they all do the same job. There are a lot of comments saying employers rely on Universal Credit but from my experience there has been a generational shift and I now get many staff saying they won't work full time hours as they prefer to do part time and top up with UC. The government have allowed that to be a thing - it's not my preference, it is my employees preference. I'm older now and struggle with some of the jobs we have to do involving lifting and so on; if possible I would have liked to keep expanding and employed more staff. But because of Labour bringing in huge business rates hikes in the last budget along with increased costs for gas, electricity, stock, insurance and so on I have actually gone down from 8 staff to 5 as staff have left and am doing many more hours than I would like myself. My business is viable but like many other indie traders I know I earn around twice what my staff do which, considering my input and responsibility, I feel is fair. If we do well I get more and they get a bonus. Small biz owners do it because we love it and it makes us happy to help out young people starting out but there is a limit to what we can afford.

I’m sure this has been said many times but I’m going to add it anyway.

I’m a soft lefty. I believe in high levels of government investment in education and health care.

However, Increasing minimum wage payments does nothing whatsoever to help people on low incomes and shows a deep deep misunderstanding of economics. The chancellor and her advisors know this very well but it’s a touchy feely pacifying move relying on peoples’ ignorance.

If you run a business increasing costs of employing people means you do one or both of two things

1. You put your prices up to cover the difference - this will cover all companies so groceries, clothing, energy, entertainment all go up. All visits increase all the way along the supply chain.?Therefore the cost of living continues to rise and the government ends up increasing the minimum wage again and again and the money in people’s pockets is not affected at all. Companies will right now be inputting new wages into their spreadsheets which will kick out new pricing accordingly.

2.You employ fewer people on less beneficial contracts with fewer hours. The employees get further squeezed and further away from financial security.

What companies don’t do is take it on the chin and reduce margins. I don’t run a business but I have a very basic rudimentary understanding of economics.

And how do you think the items are so cheap in the first place, tax or no tax?

Says the person who has no idea about the current business environment and lives in a bubble where businesses have magic money trees in the basement.

If the government want to raise NMW and not see unemployment rise they need to stop treating businesses like their own personal cash cow. VAT is too high. 20% of most business income goes straight to the government and that's before deducting the expenses of actually providing the goods or services they sell. On top of that business rates, which increase if you do anything like invest in the business to try and make if more profitable. Then payroll taxes and pensions for all your employees, which have increased making staff increasingly unaffordable.

As we are all aware the cost of living has gone up enormously and that affects businesses too. Heat, light, power, food, all inputs are massively more expensive than they were. They can increase prices but there is a curve and sales will drop off. So pretty much all businesses are seeing a drop in profits and many are going bust. HMRC is very busy at the moment putting a huge number of businesses into insolvency due to unpaid VAT and PAYE. These were previously profitable businesses that were hammered during covid, pulled themselves back up and then got hit by a barrage of increased costs just as they felt they were getting back on their feet.

If after all that a business is managing to scrape a profit, corporation tax, or partnership tax, capital gains tax, all the taxes!

So that's the environment businesses are in. Many are giving up which isn't great for those of you who rely on employment. So maybe now you understand why increasing the costs to businesses right now is a really poorly thought through plan.

It's fine to say that these businesses are 'not sustainable' if you are also fine with the sky rocketing unemployment that follows an anti business economic policy.

I'm an accountant, purely numbers driven. It really upsets me to see good well run businesses destroyed.

I employ people personally and will need to pay more. It will be hard financially but it’s the morally right thing. We always pay the real living wage even though we are very average earners ourselves.

Co-op

OH yes, that old favourite. I know @AutumnLeavesandKnittedJumpers is not the only one to say this but she was first.
So my question is: Do you have the faintest idea about microbusinesses and how close many sail to disaster?
You clearly don't, or you would have the sense not to trot out such silly soundbites.
Imagine for a moment all businesses not making enough to pay your 'living wage' closed. Good, you might think. They didn't deserve to survive.
Where will the people who worked there go? Because if we followed your theory, there will not be many businesses left.
Think of the household names that have collspsed in the last few years. If they were so precariously balance, how do you think a family business employing a handful of staff woukd measure up?
I've run my own business. I paid my staff before I paid myself.
Do you really think putting businesses who provide jobs in jeopardy on a principal is desirable?
Yes people need to be paid properly but please explain to me how your moralistic stance would pan out in the real world?
Unless it's just meaningless virtue signalling of course.