So if the Minimum Wage increases...

[missbunnyrabbit]

My own wage in a public sector job seems lower than ever. The article I read suggests the public sector pay freezes will end, but I doubt we'll get such a large pay rise!

Aibu to feel like packing my teacher job in to go and work a minimum wage job instead?

Yep jack your job in and come and join us all living the life of ease on the NMW...

I completely agree that low pay workers should get an increase and be paid a decent wage.

However, I am really worried about nurseries. Most of the local ones have children who only so funded hours. There is no increase in early years funding planned.

So they will not be able to survive.

So they will close.

People will lose jobs and children will miss out on vital early years education

I already earn that minimum wage as a higher level ta covering primary school classes.

Surely you still earn more as a teacher than someone on minimum wage? Have a better pension? More chance of moving up the carer ladder?
Minimum wage jobs are bloody hard work and on top of that you get the general public looking down on you for just being a supermarket assistant /care worker.
Wages need to go up by more than the government are saying but it's hard for small businesses. No idea what the answer is.

Yes this is going to hit nurseries extremely hard. Many managers and deputies aren't on much more than £9.50 (and yes this is wrong and they should be on much more) so almost all staff will need a raise to keep any kind of differential. The problem is that the funding rate is set by the government, the ratio of adults (qualified and unqualified) is set by the government and typically about 70% of costs is staffing. There's no way to increase income or decrease costs so they will just have to close.

The NHS will have a difficult time recruiting HCAs to work for £9.51/hour when for a penny less, they could do a job in which they have no responsibility for anyone's safety, don't need to clean bodily fluids and won't need to put up with verbal abuse.

@BrilloPaddy

As a small business owner, I'm all ears as to where this 6.6% is going to come from. And how I then deal with my more skilled staff who are also going to want the same increase.

If you can’t afford to pay your staff enough money for them to live on then your business isn’t viable. Sorry. Not the job of people on minimum wage to live in poverty to prop up businesses that can’t afford to keep going.

@NoDecentHandlesLeft

BBC is reporting as "living wage" going up? Is this minimum wage, or is it smoke and mirrors?

@NoDecentHandlesLeft George Osborne rebranded the Minimum Wage as the "National Living Wage". On the whole, confusion with the higher "Living Wage" has been avoided because most people continue to call it the Minimum Wage.

I'm public sector, my job requires education and experience. I'll be earning the same as the jobs that require no education and no experience.
Not all NMW jobs have no benefits by the way, people seem to think they're all zero hour contract jobs but where I live they're office jobs, shops jobs, charity jobs with holidays and sick pay.

@MereDintofPandiculation, thank you! Learning something new every day...

You really cannot compare the salary of a teacher to someone on minimum wage. Have you ever worked in a job with minimum wage? For a start a teacher works 39 weeks while minimum wage works 48 weeks - considerable difference even if teachers work in the holidays. Both are tough jobs but minimum wage jobs are sole destroying.

We need to increase wages so that tax credits can stop. It’s wrong that a couple can work but still need help from the state. All we are doing is funding shareholder dividends and company profits.

@Freddiefox my nursery will have to close too. Ours is also 90% funded too. We will not survive this either. So sad 😞

I've thought about the same OP. I've been a teacher for 10 years, and yes my salary is decent..but compared to the number of hours I'm working it's not worth it. 60 hours a week, no lunch, meetings before school, meetings afterschool, working during holidays, having to send cover work in when off sick, no getting paid for overtime. I regularly daydream of a minimum wage job 9-5!

@JackieCollinshasnoauthority

Sounds like a well thought out idea. Best of luck.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

If a business can not pay a decent wage then they are not a viable business anyway so probably should shut.
Everyone deserves a decent wage and has a right to earn enough to live if they are going out to work.
The problem in this country is the wealth divide and this needs to be addressed.
To many fat cats getting paid far to much for doing very little.

It’s the same with care work. Few years back you would be on maybe £1-1.50 more an hour on mim wage. If it’s going he £9.50 there isn’t anyone they can pay. Then Tesco job (probable pays more anyway) looks more appealing.

Your issue isn't that min wage will be too high - it's that your own salary is too low /working conditions too bitter, and @BitterTits exactly

Care workers, HCA all deserve more than minimum wage.

@Marelle bloomin heck when and where were you for it to be that low? I started in 1999 and it was £18 ph then for lecturing (and it hasn’t increased) I just finished in FE as a tutor which was about £11 an hour and am working as a cleaner for more!

@Freddiefox

My preschool is likely to close, I won’t be able to afford to pay the nursery staff any more money than I already do, unless the government increase the funding rates which I doubt they will. We barely survived last year. We won’t survive this increase.

I think lots of care homes will close as well as the LAs won't pay the extra. The govt make out like they are being so generous but it isn't them that will be paying it, in fact the govt will be saving money as people will pay more tax and NI and UC will go down.

If you don’t enjoy your work, then I’d course you should do something else! You only get one life.

Find a minimum wage job with Mon- Fri 9-5 hours, that’s stress free with decent conditions (sick pay, pension, mat leave, job security, training courses, HR department, etc), and ignore the toxic attitudes of those who see it/you as worthless, uneducated and a bit thick.

YANBU.
I work in the public sector and have not had a pay rise in 10 years. I could earn this much working in Aldi, and I wouldn't need a degree.
I wouldn't get the pension either, but even that is nowhere near as gold-played as people think.

@Magicalwoodlands

effort doesn’t seem worth it

But you have already made the effort.

Do you seriously think that working as a care assistant, stacking shelves in Tesco, working in an Amazon warehouse, is somehow stress free and ‘easy’?

It isn’t. It’s hard, gruelling work, it often involves anti social hours (nights, evenings, weekends) no sick pay, no god forbid death in service benefit, no pension, no enhanced maternity pay, often dealing with very difficult situations and people.

I know there is a lot wrong with teaching and that it’s hard work, but as a minimum you’re on nearly 26,000. Minimum wage on a 40hour week isn’t that.

This with bells on! Somehow these type of threads always attract people who think minimum wage jobs are 'easy'.

@Feelingoktoday

You really cannot compare the salary of a teacher to someone on minimum wage. Have you ever worked in a job with minimum wage? For a start a teacher works 39 weeks while minimum wage works 48 weeks - considerable difference even if teachers work in the holidays. Both are tough jobs but minimum wage jobs are sole destroying.

We need to increase wages so that tax credits can stop. It’s wrong that a couple can work but still need help from the state. All we are doing is funding shareholder dividends and company profits.

Legal minimum for holidays is 5.6 weeks a year.

Oh it's happening again isn't it.
This time it's hardworking people having a little dig at other hardworking people who might be getting a little extra in their wages next year. The little bit extra in their wages next year is necessary as otherwise they may not be able to afford to live.

As a nursery nurse earning a few pence over minimum wage, I have to say this announcement doesn't make me feel any better. Prices will go up in line with the increase so I won't see any benefit. Then there's the worry of how many nurseries will have to close because owners can't afford the increased wage bill along with increased prices for everything else.