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?

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

^ That. I'm sure is basically true.
People on the tightest income will suffer most.
People who find it hardest to get any job will find it even harder.

I don't see the devaluing thing being a problem, though.
I loved zero hours contract when I had one.

I am in 2 minds about this. When the NMW first came in I earned £9.50ph as a bar manager so unskilled just worked my way up. The next person they employed as my replacement came in on the NMW of £2.20ph despite having more experience than I had. I caught up with them 3 years later and they still had not got close to my leaving salary.

Businesses used to pay what they believed their employees were worth until the NMW then they only paid them what the government told them they needed to pay.

Thousands were given an immediate pay freeze because they earned over the NMW and thousands who could previously get employment at a decent salary were now only paid a paltry amount. This would happen again, pay freezes and less chance of a pay rise. It wont help. Prices will go up and everyone will be stuck as they are now.

I think that would make my salary go up a bit, would be a bit weird that I'd be paid the minimum rather than (a bit) more than the minimum, iykwim.

But I also think that there needs to be some division between some jobs, I don't think a nurse should be paid the same as a supermarket checkout worker. Responsibility, skill, experience etc are worth more than the minimum in my eyes.

PyongyangKipperbang

Should there be no reward for obtaining a professional qualification?

If not what's the point of becoming a doctor for example. Granted some may become doctors as they see it's there social responsibility. Many wont

tax credits should just be abolished altogether, they always just propped up employers offering crappy salaries

yanbu op - we dont live in a socialist utopia. why manage people who earn a quid or so less per hour? not worth the hassle.

You're getting at the wrong people, businesses should lower their expectation of profits and spread the wealth to the people at the bottom, because to put it bluntly, without the minions of which I'm one, they'd be up shit creek.

be great if we could get all those directors and highest paid employees to take massive salary cuts cos its only money, though

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

DH's boss has said he would sack anyone who started a union

You think that people will stop going to medical school because they will be able to earn £10 an hour without going?

What?

I have heard some stupid arguments for paying crap wages but that has to be in the top ten of Dumbass.

Also, why would a nurse be paid the same as a supermarket worker if the NMW went up to £10?
Will nurses wages go down? Is the proposal for everyone to get a flat rate of £10 an hour?

But surely if we get paid more we are less reliant on the state to pick up the shortfall and we have more money to spend back into the market.
The poorest paid aren't sitting on their wages they all get paid straight back out again so higher wages means more spending.

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

You want to keep people in poverty so the middle classes don't feel devalued?
Say you're ok with 13 quid an hour (and you must be a really bad programmer to be earning that!), how does it become worse because someone else now earns a proper living wage, that is still less than you?

This happened where I work, we were already being underpaid £7.54 an hour when normal rate for our job is £8.50 per hour minimum, but our company was going through some financial difficulties and hadn't given a pay rise in 8 years.
Then the minimum wage went up and the till staff and delivery driver were on only 4p less than us who had worked years for our qualification!
Now they say the company is doing much better, they've employed lots more staff, but they won't put our wage up! They keep saying they'll look at it, and then I heard the boss say "they've worked this long for £7.54, I don't see why we should change it now!" And "if they don't like it they know where the door is".
Employers just don't seem to care anymore

If not what's the point of becoming a doctor for example. Granted some may become doctors as they see it's there social responsibility. Oh' don't be so bloody ridiculous, how is a doctors salary anywhere close to a MM job.

2cats I'm currently a student - I was on £7 an hour and stopped because I'm final year. But I'm at uni so I can get a job that pays well. If I could have done without going to uni, the. I wouldn't have come. And I know people who won't come if the change goes ahead - these people could become teachers, accountants etc.

Someone said about people picking jobs on other factors besides salary. I can honestly say that where I am, 98% of the people are driven by salary.

LightYears

It's not, it was the first job that came to me, sub it for any other job

Whilst working as a childminder I was paid £4 an hour and some days I only had one child for 12 hour days. Decided to quit two years ago and do domestic cleaning. I now get paid £12 an hour and have to work less hours.
Win, win!

"But surely if we get paid more we are less reliant on the state to pick up the shortfall and we have more money to spend back into the market.
The poorest paid aren't sitting on their wages they all get paid straight back out again so higher wages means more spending."
Chibsortig -
Not necessarily, I may earn more, but I have the same amount of income every month. So I don't have extra money to spend. The country (for want of a better word) benefits by saving on my tax credit, but I don't have extra money to spend back into the market if that makes sense?

OP, Why don't you have a read of Wilkinson & Pickett's The Spirit Level?
Don't worry, they're not espousing communism or anything (because I'm fairly sure someone will bring in that old chestnut)... just sound arguments about how more equality benefits society.

The gap between nurses and hcas is narrowing rapidly.
Especially with bursarys being scrapped it will soon not be worth training as a nurse
This has serious implications for patient safety.

You want to keep people in poverty so the middle classes don't feel devalued? That's it, lets not let them get above their station. of course they'll say it's not blah blah blah, but that's what it is, what a shitty attitude.

Where DP works every forced increase takes away other conditions. Loss of enhanced overtime and Bank holidays pay. Unions and the private sector where they cannot hold the public to ransom are pathetic and not worth the subs.

Overall, the economy is more likely to be boosted by giving those at the lower paid end more money- largely because they are more likely to spend it on goods and services. So overall, employment is likely to go up and more people are likely to be employed and the economy will be better.

I do get what you mean though- people higher up the food chain will just raise their prices. But everyone does have the ability to think through their purchasing choices, and a higher minimum wage will give people more choices.

I agree that there used to be a lot more differentiation at the semi-skilled end of the labour market. A lot more opportunity to work your way up to a decent wage. Now everything is just minimum wage, or minimum wage plus a few quid for supervisors etc. I worked in a pizza delivery place when I was a student, 20 years ago. The assistant managers got paid £17k pa. Which was enough to get a mortgage on a two bedroom flat in a decent area locally. They still get paid about that. No chance of a mortgage for a studio flat locally on that wage now. So wages do need to do a bit of catching up, and house prices need to do a bit of slowing down.

You want to keep people in poverty so the middle classes don't feel devalued?

I would say this is pretty much the bones of it.

A genuine well done to everyone who got a degree. But please don't tell me you worked harder that me at between the ages of 18 - 23.
Whilst you were at university having a nice time I was working 12 hour shifts.

I am nearly 50 now. I work in social care/medical care. Whilst I would never compare myself to a highly qualified medical professional I am very experienced at my job and know my stuff. Having a geography degree doesn't make a 24 year old better at what I do than I am.

So why the hell should they be entitled to a higher wage than I?

This whinging is bollocks. If you are a qualified professional you will not be earning £10 per hr. Your status is safe.

I have no idea why people are banging on about Doctors. I have yet to met a doctor in the UK that earns anything like £10 an hour. Not officially. They may end up on that because of doing extra hours but that is a separate issue and nothing to do with NMW.

People should be going to University and doing well at school, so that they can do a job they love. Not just for the paycheck. So what if the cleaner and the executive get paid the same per hour?
At least the executive has paid holidays, sick pay and a pension. Try paying for all of that on £10 an hour.
Executives will always have special benefits compared to the 'cleaners'. If they need to feel so 'special' compared to the cleaner , then they are pathetic!

I cannot believe you actually think like this. Do you seriously think care workers only deserve less than £10 per hour because some programmer who went to university gets paid £13? So to pay the care worker more would devalue the programmer? Comments like yours disgust me.