Universal salry - could it ever work?

[manicinsomniac]

This occurred to me as I was reading another thread but I didn't want to derail.

Do you think we could ever live in a society that paid adults for the hours of work they do, not the type of work? So people would be paid by the hour, regardless of what job they were doing, rather than having an annual salary.

For example, people in the UK are to earn £15 per hour. So someone who cleans for 3 hours earns £45 but someone who cleans for 10 hours earns £150 and a doctor who does a 15 hour shift earn £225 while a lawyer who works 6 hours earns £90. People log their hours every day and get paid their sum total of working hours at the end of the week or month.

The incentive to work hard is still there because the more you work the more you get. You would still have people in a full range of jobs because people have different skills, interests, circumstances and degrees of intelligence.

I suppose the issue is - do people ever choose a job based on the money it pays alone and are there any jobs that nobody would do if they weren't as highly paid as they are? I work in a middle salary job (teacher) and didn't consider money when I was deciding what I want to do. I imagine most people choose on what they want or are able to do and are either pleased or resigned about the salary?

Obviously you couldn't do this to current adults. It would have to be phased in for people entering employment for the first time.

Is it crazy? It is, isn't it? There's some huge flaw I'm failing to see.

They actually did something a bit like this in the USSR.

The idea was that you should be paid according to the amount of responsibility for other people you had in your job, which sounds all well and good ... until it turned out that bus drivers ended up being paid a similar salary to doctors.

The bus drivers, you see, were seen to be "responsible" for all their passengers in a similar way to doctors being "responsible" for their patients. And of course, if you drive a bus, that's a lot of passengers.

And the inevitable happened ... everyone wanted to be a bus driver and nobody wanted to be a doctor.

Why train for years to do a job when you can train for a month to do another job and earn the same?

I'd need to hear a good argument for why anyone needs to earn 6 figures to be honest.
^^

Well, I can earn 6 figures and if you expect me to do the same stressful long hours job for ?20k p/a then I will take my sought after skills and experience to one of the the other major financial hubs where they will be prized and I will remain on that money. But the UK will lose my experience and tax income and those of most of the rest of people in similar positions. Obviously I'll be making the nanny redundant and letting the cleaner go too - excellent result.

And do you know why I slogged it out to get paid what I am? Because I don't come from a family with money and being REALLY poor is still a live memory for a number of family members. Poor in a way you don't see as much of today, fortunately. So I was very strategic in looking to ensure I took my career forward in a way that would enable my immediate family and I to remain comfortable and build a nest egg and if I can't do that in the UK, regretfully I will go where I can.

They do it on a small scale on this commune

But that's with a small group of like minded hippy types. Would never work on a larger scale.

That's interesting Werks (hey, according to your username, you'd do okay under this system!)

I'd have to train for years to be able to drive a bus, however - in fact I still don't think I'd be able to do it! Just thinking about manoeuvring anything bigger than my little car gives me palpitations.

Read the opening post but nothing else. I have one response: No is a complete sentence

Look - I love reading 1984 as much as the next person but I don't really want to live it.

And OP do you really think people do work for the love of it, not the pay? I have a responsible job and I am relatively well paid for it but I work bloody hard for that. Why should someone who works harder than me only earn what I earn? Or why should someone who works in an easier job earn the same?

It is actually quite terrifying that you teach children.

Also, you can't buck supply and demand. You need those price signals. That's why a command economy doesn't work.

People have tried to implement command economies, people with a hellova lot more power over their population and economy than any politician in the western world, but all it ever leads to is shops with no bread and a million tins of tuna.

The job market runs on the same rules because it is a market. If there is high demand and short supply, the cost of the good or service goes up: the salary is the "cost" of the employee in the job market.

Even in command economies, you would see this. Only the cost wasn't paid in currency because the prices are fixed; instead, the cost is paid in time. So a shop in the USSR gets a rare delivery of sewing machines. Demand is high, supply is low.

What happens? People queue for three days to get one and the people at the end of the line miss out when they've all been sold.

You cannot buck supply and demand. You just can't.

Lorelei9 - in amongst the 'you are a crazy commie get away from our kids' posts there are loads along the lines of 'I went to Uni and I work really hard so I should get more money and you can fuck off' - those are the posters I aimed the comment at, not you in particular.

Just read that you're a teacher! Please don't impart your words of non wisdom on the kids.

As an interesting note, the three day queue to buy a sewing machine actually happened in the city of Krakow in Poland in the 1980s.

Huge numbers of men actually slept on the streets for two nights in the bitter cold for the chance to buy their wives sewing machines. A fair number of those wives became frantic by the second day because they thought their husbands had been arrested by the secret police because they just seemed to "disappear" on their way home from work.

Such was life in the former Eastern Bloc.

I think a lot of these threads that insist cleaners work as hard as surgeons and ceo's are missing the obvious: risk

Who would take on the risk of being a surgeon for 15/hr, no one, that's who.

There are only so many hours in a day that can be worked, they could never earn enough for the skills, risk and stress of the job

People saying "it just wouldn't work" And "just because it wouldn't, ok" without providing any argument at all are beginning to annoy me. I'm not saying I think this is a great idea because I think it's too idealistic to assume that people would give up the societal privileges bestowed on higher wage earners and the status money gives them without a fight. I think instinctively people come from a position of trying to hold onto what is theirs and psychologically would resist the change. There - my arguments.

Also, there are jobs where you would have to have legally enforceable rests. You couldn't have a doctor, nurse, pilot or bus driver allowed to work successive 24 hour shifts so people going into those jobs would potentially be earning less than people doing less stressful jobs without limits on hours.

"I don't cross paths with that many people who aren't either the same or better off."
So you don't socialise with the people outside of your own class?
If you really are a teacher and actually earn the amount you brag about, I genuinely fear for the future of our children,.

So a doctor who spends 7+ studying, sacrificing and training towards his/her profession vs a cleaner who can be trained in a few weeks should be expected to work within this system. Pretty stupid to even think that.

This is what they do in north Korea. Not the best success story in the world.

Yabu and naive.

OP " Yes, I had a starting salary but it was a decent one - 20K plus perks of free childcare and subsidised housing. I was only 22 and I just had one toddler; there just wasn't that much that I needed. Now I earn twice that but I need to spend a hell of a lot more. I'm just the same - perfectly, averagely, 'fine' financially. I don't cross paths with that many people who aren't either the same or better off"

surprised not to see more replies to that.

okay - firstly - you had subsidised housing? So you didn't have to worry about the biggest basic cost of living - major benefit there.

Now you earn £40k and you don't know anyone who earns less?

Well, I earn a heck of a lot less and wages have pretty much flatlined for most of us not in such good careers.

I have friends who earn £40k, £60k etc but they are very conscious that it's a good wage. I feel like you have no idea what the average salary might be but that's because you are coming across like you are really clueless.

so let's go back to your original suggestion - everyone gets paid £15 per hour. Are you happy with that? Your wage would be nearly halved. That's okay with you then?

Beginning to think this is a wind up thread

Am I bragging about my salary?! Oh my God, I'm so sorry, that is genuinely not what I intended to do at all I know I'm very lucky and it doesn't seem to be a high one compared to many (or the majority?) on mn so I didn't think mentioning figures would come across as bragging. Remember that's household income too. I'm sincerely sorry, though. Really really wasn't what I meant to do.

Yes, I suppose I socialise mostly within my own class. I live in a homogenous area, go to work/school and back within the same demographic, to clubs and activities with very similar people, to hobbies with very similar people, on holiday with very similar people. My family are all around the same. Is that unusual?

And yep, we have established IWBU

To learn how to work the tills in a supermarket takes a day.
To learn how to be a plumber takes a year.
To learn how to be an accountant takes three years.
To learn how to be a surgeon takes six years.

Why should they be rewarded the same when you are paying for what is inside the persons brain that guides their hands?

I wasn't trying to wind anyone up, I was just musing. Average salary - around 20K I think? I could google but then I'd know the answer, and I think you want to know my impression.

I could cope if my wage was nearly halved I suppose. I wouldn't have nearly such a nice lifestyle but I would manage and, with the number of people who currently aren't managing, I would take it as a good trade off. I'd prefer everyone to be okay rather than some a lot more than okay and others nowhere near okay. But, given my mistake with the earlier post over the annual salary that £15ph comes out as, I don't think it would be enough. Especially for those in London with many children. It would need to be quite a lot higher.

Mumsnet forbidscalling people trolls, so I won't.

OP "Remember that's household income too."

huh? what figure is the £40k - your earnings or your household income? If it is the household income, where does the rest of it come from, if not your salary?

even you only mix with the same people, do you not live in the world? We are surrounded by information all the time.

After tax earnings of the median household are £26k per year.

Many families on that amount will also have tax credits, child benefit and housing benefit.

It includes people on jsa, state pension only etc as well as millionaires.

£40K is my salary but, barring child benefit, that's the same as our household income. I'm the sole earner. I just think it's worth pointing out because a lot of people on here who earn £20K have a partner who also earns 20K.

I'm just the same - perfectly, averagely, 'fine' financially. I don't cross paths with that many people who aren't either the same or better off.

Well good for you however unless you know the ins and outs of the financial situation, salary, income and expenditure of everyone you know, then that statement is incorrect.

TBH OP you sound quite unaware of 'the real world'