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?

Problems with the minimum wage setting to £10 ph policy:

1. politically set wages is a huge step away from this being in the control of experts at the low pay commission, as it was when Blair set this up.
2. likely rise in unemployment
3. people having their hours cut.

I see pages of anecdotal stories of this, and here is the IFS's view as above:

www.ifs.org.uk/publications/8694

Apologies if someone already linked to it.

I think this minimum wage policy of Corbyn's is exactly why he's a terrible leader - it's back to central command of wages with no analysis of the impact on jobs/number of hours worked. And a world away from how New labour carefully introduced the min wage and put it in the hands of the LPC.

You are not sure what my point is Rooster. Earlier you said it was easier for the childless re. working for low wages. It wasnt and im not the only MNer who has had this experience. Well there was only Family Credit prior to Working Tax Credit. The clue is kind of in the word FAMILY.

Roomster101 Mon 08-May-17 08:37:35
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?

HelenaDove Mon 08-May-17 18:26:32
Roomster im childfree by choice. It was the childless ones who were expected to take the £50 a week full time jobs that were in the Job Centre in the mid/late 90s as i have explained upthread. When my rent was £48 a week with no other help. BECAUSE i was childless.

I was discriminated against sexually too. I was pulled to one side during a signing and made to sign a form saying i would consider part time work even though there was no way i could have afforded to.

The men who i knew personally who were signing were made to do NO SUCH THING. So it was purely because i possess a vagina. AND hadnt used it to give birth!

The posters who are saying that theyhave done nmw jobs and found them easy comparing to their currentdegree jobs are missing a crucial point imo: THE AGE factor.
The job was easy because you were young and carefree. It would be very different, tiring and stressful if you went back to it now.

Also most people wish they had more responsibilities and some autonomy. Doing a job with responsibility and decisions is not such a bad thing ime. Actually it is more tiring and stressful when you don't have them. I have been on both sides and i know which one i prefer.

Imo a degree based job it is still better even if you earn one pound extra per hour. You also have more options. And progression. The Hospital doctor will move to a much higher salary.
And i am not even going to the status issue and how people see you if you are on nmw.

Yes, I'm not yearning for the carefree days when I was stacking shelves. You get the benefit of the doubt as a professional - and flexibility. I'm so often late for my technical start time I'd have been long ago sacked for poor time keeping if I worked in a supermarket.

"And i am not even going to the status issue and how people see you if you are on nmw."
Laquitar

Yes, this is a 'thing' ime, I've done a management job, I haven't got a degree, but have done stand alone courses, off my own back, to improve my knowledge and employability.
Being susceptible to stress means I'm not really compatible with management jobs, and would in all probability, find a degree too stressful as well. However when in management I was treated with a lot more respect by other 'professionals' now I'm in a 'regular' nmw job, with lower stress levels and not much of a drop in wage, I'm often written off as a no hoped in a dead end job, whose opinions don't matter and has no aspirations. I've stopped worrying about it myself because my present situation is much better for me, but I can understand how others may feel, and want to avoid it.

I can't imagine lawyers, doctors, teachers all rushing to swap their hard won careers for that of cleaner, shopworker etc, just because nmw is raised to £10 per hour.
Their careers are about more than money. Plus the careers mentioned pay way more than £10 per hour. 😉

HelenaDove I still don't get what your point is. Perhaps I should have said the prior to tax credits at best for those on low incomes working was often only financially worthwhile if they didn't have families (i.e. they would have received more money on benefits than if working). The fact that for you working wasn't financially worthwhile before tax credit even though you were childless isn't really an argument for taking away tax credits is it?

I can't imagine lawyers, doctors, teachers all rushing to swap their hard won careers for that of cleaner, shopworker etc, just because nmw is raised to £10 per hour.
Their careers are about more than money. Plus the careers mentioned pay way more than £10 per hour.

Plenty of teachers are already swapping their careers for low paid jobs with less responsibilities i.e. becoming teaching assistants. If NMW increased then perhaps even more would swap. I don't know about lawyers and doctors but I think that many other professions particularly those in the NHS would also swap if it meant less responsibility and stress and still a reasonable salary.

Roomster i dont want them to be abolished. I never said i did.

But it was bloody hard for childless ppl signing on in the late 90s. People with familes wearnt expected to take exploitative jobs and risk homelessness. Childless people were.

Now families ARE expected to do the same and that is WRONG. Im not one of those fools who wants a race to the bottom. But because it was accepted as ok to do to childless people its not really surprising that certain Governments think its ok to do to families too.

It reminds me of that poem. The one that says first they came for etc etc..........................

and then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me etc.

But it was bloody hard for childless ppl signing on in the late 90s. People with familes wearnt expected to take exploitative jobs and risk homelessness. Childless people were.

That is irrelevant to the point I was making that before tax credits working was often not financially worthwhile for those with families because they received more on benefits. If some childless people were also in that position (although I didn't know any) that doesn't negate my point that tax credits mean that those who work are financially better off than those who don't.

Agreed. I think we are in agreement but just coming at it from different angles.

I'm working my way through this thread...apologies haven't rtft just yet.

To those saying people simply will not train as nurses, you are absolutely correct (KateClarke and others).

Mrsdv- I found you comments patronising also, in particularly mentioning students having a great time at uni while you were working 12 hour shifts. Let me tell you, as a nurse I was doing 12 hour (often longer) shifts just to train. Student nurse training is nothing like the "normal" uni course. There's no long holidays and lots of long shifts...for no pay. You say the fact that nurses are already working for £11 an hour is proof people will continue to train- this may perhaps have been the case but the vast majority of nurses working now received a bursary to train which, although low, made training do-able. They also did not pay fees. No bursary, huge fees, massive responsibility, lifelong training etc for a starting salary of just £1.31 more than the proposed minimum wage?? No thanks. (the link, just in case n-one else has posted, for wages of nurses is here. Starting at £11.31 for band 5 www.rcn.org.uk/employment-and-pay/nhs-pay-scales-2017-18 ).

I think, as I've read others say, this is the argument for raising the wages for all. I support an increase in minimum wage BUT other wages need to rise in line also.

TO answer the OP- no, Yanbu at all.