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 got my degree (and masters and further post doc) in my 30's. I earned more beforehand than I do right now (for various reasons). Education is not a golden ticket to riches.

We should be working with a veil of ignorance principle.

Doctor or not, there are professional jobs that pay £13 (£28k gross - I know a junior doctor on around this btw) an hour and around there. The point is the same. Would you go to university for 3+ years, take on debt and the stress of it, to earn £3 more ?

It's not about the middle class feeling superior. It's about the overall effect it will have on productivity whilst not really changing the status quo. It might even drag more people into poverty. For example;

1. MNW goes up so cleaner is £10 but manager? is still £13
2. Shops raise the prices to make up for the salaries (they'll probably raise by more than they have to because they have an excuse)
3. ME worker still needs assistance from the state.
4. The manager will now struggle too because their bills have gone up as a result of the hike in NMW but their salary never went up to compensate.

The result is ; both of them are struggling and the company is the only one winning.

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

Absolutely. Excellent point.
People prefer to be self sufficient whatever the propaganda and Channel 5 want us to believe.
If we have a population in secure, well paid employment and decent housing our economy will thrive.

Keep people poor, insecure and living in crap and you really think the UK will do well?

How on earth does that make sense?

we need a living wage. i'm all for it.
the differential between workers & owners/management is out of control at the moment. CEOs earning millions pa even though their company is failing/losing money. Workers on low low wages. it isn't right.

A qualified nurse gets very little more than £10 an-hour
The responsibility and accountability between a nurse and a hca are worlds apart.

btw companies do not just "raise their prices"
market forces are in play
competition
exports etc...

spice
If your argument were valid there would be no nurses or junior doctors, veterinary nurses, play therapists, music therapists, psychologists and speech and language therapists (I could go on).
Because all of those roles mean a lot of expensive study with few financial returns for many years (or at all in some cases).

You do not reward people by making other people poorer than them. What a stupid argument.

It's not, it was the first job that came to me, sub it for any other job Sounds like you've put little thought into the subject matter.

smurf do you really think a CEO and cleaner deserve the same wage? Or that paid holiday makes up for the additional stress and responsibility? I've been a cleaner and don't believe that.

I hear what people are saying about CEOs earning millions but I don't see that changing soon. I fear that the ones in the middle will be the ones caught out ...AGAIN. I'm not middle class , like I said , I'm a student. But just seems the middle class are always the ones targeted. And this would target them (see my last post)

Thank you for the link Brex

As an employer, I really hope the £10 minimum wage does not come in. I do have unskilled staff, they do get paid minimum wage. I have skilled staff, they get paid more than minimum wage. If they insisted on increasing the minimum wage, i'd need to increase the wage of my skilled workers - I can't just up the prices for my customers because they couldn't afford to use my services, That would then mean, I, as a self-employed person, the owner of the business and the one who has the potential to loose everything would be on less than minimum wage...all so I can pay someone far more than they actually earn me. Not every business owner is a fat cat. Not every employer is bad and only in it for the money. Yes we pay minimum wage for some staff, but we also offer lots of other benefits all of which would have to stop for all employees for such a ridiculously high minimum wage

Nurse Plus Salaries in the United Kingdom
Nursing Average Salary
Registered Nurse 788 salaries reported £17.93 per hour
Registered Mental Health Nurse 255 salaries reported £20.18 per hour
Healthcare Assistant 124 salaries reported £9.14 per hour
Registered Nurse - Operating Room 109 salaries reported £24.88 per hour

Really kate?

Mrsdv I didn't say to make others poorer at all. I'm asking if this change will actually benefit anyone ? Please read my last post where I have outlined what I believe would be the cycle. Which part of that do you disagree with? I'm genuinely trying to get my head around this but blanket statements at Ebro really helping with that.

That has always been the argument for paying low wages AmI

Yup, MrsDV, with a population in secure, well paid employment and decent housing our economy will thrive

We should be concentrating on things like changing laws on company pensions so people like Philip Green don't blow up decades of work by thousands of people in order to sun themselves on mega yachts moored in the South of France. And to stop private equity firms loading up viable companies up with debt before absconding with a quick buck. Rather than begrudging people who work in honest and often thankless jobs a couple of quid an hour.

smurf do you really think a CEO and cleaner deserve the same wage? Or that paid holiday makes up for the additional stress and responsibility?

Did anyone say that? Do you really think the CEO should get 500+ times the wage of the cleaner?

You'd rather the poor stay poor and the rich stay rich as long as you in the middle are better off than others. It's not even about what you get, you just need to feel superior to someone.
That's sad for you. And makes for bad policy.

the middle class are always the ones targeted my heart bleeds, it really does.

What CEO gets paid £10 an hour?

OP, Why don't you have a read of Wilkinson & Pickett's The Spirit Level?

I've read this Brexit and it is excellent - and it also points out that societies where there is NOT a huge differential in wages between the top and bottom earners are on the whole, happier (across all levels), more stable and have lower crime levels. Can't remember off the top of my head, but I think Denmark was an example (apologies if I've misremembered).

I have a professional degree and am currently working Amin wage job! The job deserves the ten pounds an hour as it's hard work, not really physically but mentally. Sorry I think min wage should be ten pounds per hour!

How much profit is your business making Weed I'm sure you aren't doing it for the fun of it.

That is why junior doctors held a mass protest as £28k is not enough. At the time the government and the media spun a good story to ensure Joe public turned against the "selfish, greedy, snowflake generation junior doctors". You shouldn't stop the MW increasing because the government will not address the need for an increase in junior doctor wages. Do you see the pattern here? The public focus on how unfair it is for an "unskilled" worker to have a wage a few pounds behind a junior doctor, rather than how disgusting it is for the government to pay junior doctors such a low wage in comparison to their skillset and responsibilities.

Actually MrsDV my first year running the business I paid myself on average £6 an hour, I was working 50+ hours a week and make £16k
3 years on my average wage is around £13 an hour....this however can fluctuate month by month
I am a Director of a company with a turnover of around £400k

Perhaps companies like Next need to understand that their workers are valuable and require a proper wage. It shouldn't all be about profits who go to the few, but about responsible capitalism in which all profit.

Similarly with food production. Why should the big four make excessive profits on the backs of those who work hard for them? Pay everyone a decent wage, don't avoid taxes and reap rewards in hundreds of millions rather than thousands of millions.

You do know OP that there are quite a few fairly low paid jobs that require professional qualifications. And yet people still go into them, because pay is only one motivating factor