Or just a bit thick when it comes to introduction of living wage?

[Unacceptable]

Having been lucky enough to be part of a few heated discussions about tax credit cuts recently, I've finally found a way to shut up those who insist if only my family and families like mine worked harder we could make up the difference and not have to rely on credits anyway.

The living wage is introduced first.
Once that is in place an awful lot of families immediately earn enough to live without the tax credits anyway.
After a couple of years the threshold is then lowered.

So many indignant, pissed off, why-should-my-taxes then just say "well yeah, that could work"

Obviously, these poor hard working well paid people might just be leaning towards the left a little but it has got me thinking.
Why wasn't it done this way around?
Is it just much easier to cut credits first and introduce a living wage years later?

i can't quite get my head around why it's cuts first and living wage later and I thought I was fairly intelligent

Can anyone tell me why that way round is a bad move, why it isn't workable?

The rates paid to the (unqualified) Social Care workforce is entirely dependent on what Local Government is willing to pay. Independent (private sector) providers are contracted by the Local Authorities to deliver a service, they go through a competitive tendering process during which the Local Authority sets the rates. If the Government does not commit considerably more funding for social care, this industry (which is already significantly under-funded) will collapse leading to an even greater burden on the NHS. A large proportion of the workforce is paid NMW and many of the employees claim tax credits - without the means to do so, employers cannot raise pay rates in a sustainable way. I'm in full agreement with the genuine Living Wage set by the Living Wage Foundation, but the onus should not be on the employers alone to meet Osborne's National 'Living' Wage (i.e. the rebranded and increased NMW).

As YeOldeTrout says this idea that tax credits bail out nasty, exploitative employers who won't pay the living wage so that they can be got rid of if employers pay properly conveniently ignores the fact that a lot of minimum wage employees are employed by the government itself so they are increasing their own costs.

Aside from those who are direct government employees even more staff are private sector employees but of businesses almost solely reliant on government funding. I'm thinking of care home workers and home care workers. They work for private businesses but aside from 'self funders' the vast majority older people needing care are actually funded by the local authority (especially in poorer areas of the U.K.) Ie they are being funded by taxation.

Staff wages are the biggest cost of any business. If the government doesn't take into account the very big rise in the minimum wage then care homes and care agencies will go bust or they will cease to accept council funded residents. Social workers I know are shitting themselves about this as there is already such a huge shortage of care. There are only a couple of ways out of this and the government must be expecting to save some money by these means although they never say so: 1) care businesses will exploit their staff even worse than they already do or 2) self funders will 'cross subsidise' the others even more than they already do.

The same argument will apply to a lot of other low paid workers eg hospital and school cleaners and caterers are often outsourced to agencies but all or nearly all of the agency's income is from the government contracts

So to answer OPs original question the 'living wage' was not done first because:

It will wind up costing the government money by paying their own workers more and by increasing the value of contracts for social care and support services so why would they want to do that?

It is not actually going to cover the shortfall left by abolishing tax credits. If there is a delay this will not be quite so noticeable. The idea is that after 4 years of being worse off you will then be slightly better off just before the election and thank the Tories for that by voting for them (again)

These businesses that are complaining that they won't be able to afford the higher minimum wage, how much profit are they making? Are they just scrapping by? I doubt that very much. Greed!
The Company I work for is as tight as a drum, it's huge as well, they aren't happy unless profits increase every year, millions in profit, never satisfied.

Perhaps because it panders to their capitalist, business owning voters.....

It is depressing....

Ultimately society is paying the cost of these fat cats having massive profits... If they paid workers properly.... ie had less profit for themselves.. Workers wouldn't need tax credits..

For too long all of us have been picking up the tab so these companies can have massive profits....

It's state sanctioned fraud..

"These businesses that are complaining that they won't be able to afford the higher minimum wage, how much profit are they making? Are they just scrapping by? I doubt that very much. Greed!" So true for private businesses especially energy and telecoms industry (bt still own all landlines eg)

It's Tories looking after their BILLIONAIRE pals! They may need to make £xbillion more come in pa but to penalise the often working poor? But give more money to those who already have ridiculous amounts in changes to inheritance tax, not tackling tax avoidance and evasion properly, not having the banks repay the bail out money? Crazy! I was watching question time on catch up and was reminded of how Iceland dealt with the irresponsible bankers - jailed their arses! Didn't bail them out!

Being a small charity we make a £1k-3k surplus each year, sometimes less, we will have to fundraise even more just to afford to buy replacement toys and equipment for the children, which is fine of course but is not guaranteed or regular income.

There are genuinely some businesses that will be hugely affected.