To think that wages should have to increase inline with inflation?

[Crawling]

Every year dps work give a cost of living rise and everyone is all happy but every year its half as much as inflation which means its really a pay cut. AIBU to think wages should legally have to rise at the same rate of inflation?

I haven't be able to give my staff a pay rise in 2 years and I am struggling to keep my own income stable. Any rise in the current environment is excellent.

Yes, they should have but most companies hope that wages will be subsidised via tax credits and housing benefit. That way they don't have to increase wages, their profits increase, the company stays afloat, the government can hail increased employment and lack of failing companies and the taxpayers gets to foot the bill. What could possibly go wrong...

DH hasn't had a pay rise in about two years - he works for a small private sector company and it's been tough in their market. I'm self employed - staff costs can only be funded via business revenue or cutting costs elsewhere - sadly there isn't a big pot of free money for this.

How would you suggest your DP's employer fund this?

I think it's 4 years since I had a pay rise. TA in school.

It is shockingly bad.

Dp s company have seen a steady increase in profit margins in fact last year was thier biggest profit year ever by over 1/2 a million. Yet they still every year attempt to de value dps job. His job used to be worth 30,000 now its worth 20,000 meaning we are dependant on benefits now where before we would not have been.

In the current climate where too much money is spent on benefits I dont see why the government should pick up the tab because richer employers get richer while reducing middle rate wages.

Charity worker - no pay rise for 5 years - and the last one was way below inflation and cost of living rates.

If wages had to rise with inflation there would be an awful lot more SME's going under.

Orwellian - that is just BS. Most of the private sector actually value their workforce quite highly and invest a lot of money into training and keeping them.

I get that dp is lucky to have any pay rise but imo it shouldnt be that way and peoples jobs are being de valued every year and I think its sad that some people have had no pay increase for years which imo is wrong.

Of course it's wrong, but if inflation-proofed pay rises were given, companies wouldn't be able to afford it and would soon go under.

I agree with you that the government should not be picking up the tab for tax credits, etc to allow companies to pay less and take more profits but many companies are teetering on the edge at the moment and genuinely cannot afford pay increases.

I work for the NHS and haven't had a pay rise since I started there over 3 years ago. Having said that I love my job and my colleagues so, while it would be nice, I will put up with it rather than think of elsewhere

I get that little companies cant do it but there is no reason it couldnt be done for bigger companies IF they turn over a certain amout of profit.

i have said this a million times

but IMO its not that wages are too LOW its that the cost of living is too HIGH...and this is why employers generally can't increase wages

and its THAT that needs addressing but no one in power gives a shit

Good companies will regularly size and scale jobs to make sure they are still worth what they're worth, iyswim. My old employer would give small scale rises to make sure they paid their employees roughly the same as other similar employers - otherwise you'd just get people leaving for small amounts of money. This wasn't linked to the cost of living at all though.

It's not the job of a business to account for the cost of living. Even a 2% rise can have a massive impact on a pay bill - they have to see some sort of reward for that investment. ^^ that's why my old place did it that way, because their 'reward' was they'd keep good staff. But if there was no other competitor in an area, for eg, there wouldn't neccessarily be a scale rise that year.