To disagree with the £10 minimum wage policy ?

[Spice22]

This is a genuine question - I've been reading some of the policies and I can't quite decide how I feel about this.

I have 2 key problems ;

1. Won't prices for everything just go up anyway, meaning there's no real change and people will still need tax credits?

1. My biggest concern if I'm honest. Will this not devalue professions? Currently, a cleaner may earn £7 and a programmer , for example, may earn £13 an hour. If the minimum wage rises to £10, there will be a £3 differential between someone who has gained qualifications and someone who is in a MW job. I really don't see many companies increasing the wage of the professional when they are faced with a huge bill to increase the wage of the MW worker. So why would anyone go to uni? Especially when they can work overtime and easily outearn the ones who did?

AIBU and why?

I imagine if you asked all the people you know who are on around £10 ph hour now I think the majority would feel the same as you Lynnette and Sad. I don't think it makes you a bad person, it would purely make the system flawed.

I wouldn't begrudge anyone earning a few quid more but I guess I would feel pissed off that I had to gain qualifications and additional experience to do my job, which is potentially more stressful, but would get paid the same. I think that comment is only relevant when you are talking about jobs within the same department/company. Comparisons between different types of jobs are meaningless IMO and it is only relevant when you are talking hourly rates within a few pound.

I don't care what other people get once I'm roughly ok

I think too many begrudge those below them the ability to live comfortably, instead of being 'well I'm struggling so why shouldnt they be too' instead of 'im struggling but thats my bosses fault not the person below me'

One of the many reasons to bother going to university, getting in to debt etc etc is for the long term earning potential of those professions. Looking at graduate wages as compared to £10 per hour minimum wage is almost irrelevant. Without further qualifications and/or training the person on minimum wage is not going to increase their earnings as much as the professional could.

Well I've spent my life achieving things that even highly paid people say are impossible and i am currently earning nothing and have rarely earnt more than £11 an hour.

You don't automatically get paid more because you went to uni.

sadandanxious As part of a retail job i had to do unpaid overtime.

Working for an electrical store we had to do these things called mega events. Now us shop workers were on 30p above the minimum wage . We were paid just this same rate to do these mega events all day on a Saturday but when it got past 5.30pm it was unpaid (these events would run until 10pm)

The ones who worked in the warehouses would work these same events but were paid double time ALL DAY AND EVENING.

Unpaid overtime isnt only an expectation of those higher up the scale you know.

ScaryClown You said But that's a typical example of someone who isn't really a businesswoman, she is someone who wants to be a florist.
and yet you have just acknowledged you have rarely earned above £11 -... surely you are an example of someone who isn't really 'doing the impossible', you are just someone who wants to.
Seriously that comment about the florist really annoyed me, it must be devastating to have a business go under and you were so dismissive and rude, that's someones livelihood that they'll have put their heart and soul into making work. You clearly have a major chip on your shoulder and are pretty vile to everyone who doesn't hate 'the man' like you do.

I think it will push more people into the gig economy, where security is nil, and wages even lower. They are self employed, right?
although employment practices are challenged in these companies, these models of business will be tried in different forms as it allows lower wage costs.
We then get two tier employment practices.

It probably will push more of those currently in NMW jobs into the gig economy especially if those currently in better-paid professional jobs start competing for less stressful NMW jobs (i.e. the ones with less responsibility and limited/no overtime).

It's not about rude, it's about, are you a business person who runs whatever.business will make the most money, or do you run the business you want to run. I see many small shop owners in areas where they are trying to sell things people don't want, and blaming their employees or the government or whatever.

There's an argument for a functional shopping area needing a florist for balance, say, or perhaps a funeral directors with a poor revenue high Street premises who could bolt on a florist as an additional service and save costs maybe. I've seen florists and other shops go to the wall because the owner doesn't want to spend 30% of their time marketing for example.

I am definitely someone who hasachieved what others thought impossible, though one of the peculiarities about some of the work I've done is because people think it's impossible, they dismiss it and don't allocate the same funds they do to easily imagined projects that they can see political benefit in standing alongside. It's a a peculiarity I a regular you a argue against as its actually against a good enconomic behaviour. I am someone who likes doing impossible things, and hate waiting, so I've sometimes done work at subsistence, because if I'd waited for full reward, the people who think it's impossible will just take a very long time to 'decide' it can't be done, and so resist appointing funds, irrespective of the long term benefits. There are also far too many people in high responsibility positions who just aren't capable of vision, good analysis or delivery, who really hate someone swanning in and saying 'thats not impossible, give me two staff and six months and you'll see what I mean' as it would expose their current negative evaluation to be false. I am more interested in changing perspectives than I am about playing an inefficient game for approval from less capable people and that remains quite threatening. In essence I too 'want to be a florist's as I could make more money aligning with plodding projects that everyone agrees are possible. I just find that much more stressful than the projects that others perceive as high risk.

As costs go up, yes you could diversify, run smarter, better etc, or you could say, let's not bother.

Not everyone is as motivated to work as you are. scary
I work for X hours and I get paid y pounds. That's my motivation.

Where i work (retail) we've had to make mass redundancies to afford the NLW hikes. I do agree with raising the minimum/living wage but it will lead to redundancies if employers need to cut costs.

As an aside I once worked ona project where around 1000 of the lowest paid staff were due to be made redundant, and worked out that the entire wage bill for all these staff (on part time hours, minum wage) was equal to that of the CEO alone. That can't be right.

Where i work (retail) we've had to make mass redundancies to afford the NLW hikes. I do agree with raising the minimum/living wage but it will lead to redundancies if employers need to cut costs.

They dont need to cut costs they just dont want to cut profit theres a difference, instead of prioritising the workers they prioritise the shareholders/owners, god forbid anyone tries to tackle the inequality though, theyd probably get shouted down as a lefty loony, or a trot.....oh wait

There should be no tax credits. The burden of low wages is falling on the State, when it should be being paid by the employers.

If an employer has to increase the wages of the lowest paid, it will lead to wages for all employees to rise.

All it will mean for most employers is that they don't make as much profit as they made previously.

For the country it means that we are not having to fork out millions in tax credits.

surprise
In which case unemployment will rise and the State will still pay.

It happened in the 80's

A form of tax credits is a much better use of taxpayer funds as paying people to go out to work is better than paying them to sit at home.

Well studied worldwide.

justanotherposter I work for a charity, there are no shareholders.

All profits are put towards charitable work.

YANBU. Its a great arguably the greatest idea in theory. However putting it in to practice is a lot harder.
Employers will just get rid of people to be able to afford it. Even if they need the staff.
That said however at the sametime I do think its highly disgusting. That people working often still need their wages topping up by tax credits. A fair days work for a fair days pay should exactly that

Awwlook that is exactly what is happening. Each time the NLW goes up, we have to do a restructure to be able to afford the remaining staff.

Removing tax credits won't force employers to raise wages. Before tax credits were introduced wages for many jobs were still very low and whilst working was worthwhile for those without children, many people with families decided that they would be better off on benefits and didn't work at all. I wonder if those who think wages would increase if tax credits were abolished were adults in the 80s and 90s (i.e. before tax credits were introduced) and remember what it was like?

If tax credits were abolished it would make no difference to how much I could pay someone unless the government put it in my business bank account! I'm not making a huge profit and I often have to wait to pay myself after everyone else has been paid!
Some people really don't get it!

I think many small businesses will have no choice but to close if tax credits are abolished and the minimum wage increased, pushing people out of work.
That said an employer should pay a decent wage that someone should be able to live on, but just doing that won't solve the problem. It's not the only issue, the reason people can't live on their low income is also due to the cost of living. For example, fuel and rent rake in millions in profit - if low wage paying employers are made to take less profit then shouldn't those areas be made to take less profit too and adjust their prices accordingly to make them affordable?
That may be a very simplistic view though.
I also think that experience and qualifications should warrant some extra pay, as should extra responsibilities, otherwise where is the incentive to take that responsibility on? Or do that training? I gave up a stressful, salaried job (which incidentally I still received tax credits for because it still fell into a low wage) because my work ethic made sure I wanted to do the job to the best of my ability so had more and more heaped on my plate, so the hours I was putting in, taking me away from my family, reducing a work life balance to 0, worked out that I was earning a chunk less per hour than nmw and then when that increased I realised that to do 40 hours at nmw would only see me £20 a week worse off than the current 50/60/hour week on a salary.
It's an employers market, with hundreds of applications for each job, employers can choose who they want and replace you very easily, therefore they've got no incentive to treat staff well and keep them.

There are still lots of flaws in a blanket £10 ph hour though. In the South East this doesn't go as far as further up North. In one area £8 ph may be fine based on rent etc but further South possibly not. I know many people on minimum wage whose OHs earn fairly well so they don't claim tax credits so they can afford to live so it's not just about that. How do you decide how much you actually need to live?

Jobs should be paid what they are worth of course, but then presumably that means the higher level jobs do too.

People keeping going on about shareholders making huge profits and are purposely ignoring the not for profit businesses issues, I can only assume it is because they do not have an answer for that.

Sorry, not just not for profit businesses also small businesses. I do work for people who are living off a lot less than they pay all their workers, they have very little profit but love what they do. They would not be able to keep the business going if they were paying £10ph to everyone.

'Unless forced to, bosses will treat people like shit'.
Yes, many will. join a union and vote Labour.

It may not mean that bosses will 'treat people like shit'

if its a small business it may close with £10 minimum wage

then everyone will be out of work and there is nothing the union can do about that

Each time the NLW goes up, we have to do a restructure to be able to afford the remaining staff.

yup

and people moan that the high streets are full of 'big businesses'! They are the only ones who be left soon

It's a totally idiotic idea, but what else do you expect from the Labour party?

Expect to hear more ill thought out proposals in the coming weeks as desperation sets in.