Aibu to not want a £15 minimum wage?

[Israisingwagesworthit]

This morning I saw a post saying there are calls for a £15 per hour minimum wage.

I understand fully that the current minimum wage doesn't give people enough to survive on and something needs to change to ensure everyone gets a comfortable living wage, and I support this.

However by pushing up the minimum wage doesn't that just add additional costs for businesses, therefore increase costs to consumers removing any benefit of an increased minimum wage in addition to reducing the disposable income and pay gap of anyone above minimum wage.

Surely this only benefits the government with additional income tax?

Is this the best option in a time of potential 18% inflation, would this not increase it further?

Capitalism is the issue, rather than sharing the profit wealth, CEO's (of all levels of business, small and large) keep the profits for themselves and just raise prices when costs go up.

Am i being unreasonable to assume that in order for the £15ph wage to be successful, companies must accept lower profits rather than increasing prices in line with the wage increase otherwise its just pointless and daminging to all wage earners not just the minimum wage.

Won't the government have to threaten windfall taxes to those who increase prices to maintain profits to make it work and to actually benefit minimum wage earners?

I'll admit I'm a middle earner (£40k) civil servant (so no chance of a payrise anytime soon) so would be financially damaged by a raise in minimum wage if nothing is done to stop the subsequently price increases of products after a minimum pay rise. As a result my view may be biased, but am I wrong?

then the workers need to stop doing his work and making him money, there is no profit without the workers
Laughable suggestion

who do you think makes the CEO his or her money then?

It seems most on here want ceo to have money and workers to go without and suffer, any mention of a raise for workers at the bottom and their are objections, but no-one seems to object to CEOs getting paid over 200x the wages of a worker

If the entire workforce of Tesco walked out tomorrow then it might happen

but in the real world what is the chance of that happening

it depends really on what the union for Tesco decides to ballot and whether the members vote to strike?

In reality it could happen, but Id be doubtful that enough would vote to strike on a payrise

Well rn there's fuck all incentive not to.

Right now they're staring actual physical harm in the face by keeping things as they are.

At what point do you think this will tip? Because I think it's quite close.

The minimum wage should pay enough to live a decent life, buy a modest house, go on holiday once a year, run a car, raise a child etc. Those with higher education, special skills etc should earn more but not THAT much more.

How much more do you suggest?

Another £5.10 an hour.

A wage of £15/hr would pay around £31,200 for a 40hr week, 52 weeks a year. Remember that many minimum wage earners do not have set hours contracted, and are actually unlikely to get paid holiday/ sick leave on those hours, so would be lower than that. Now consider a wage of £31,200 (before tax) that’s £25,000 take home, and service bills in excess of £6,000, not counting housing costs, water, council tax, childcare costs, etc, etc

Currently, many are earning low wages, topped up by the taxpayer, through Universal credit and housing benefits. The question is, who should pay the “real” wage of a worker? The taxpayer, or the employer? My argument is that if your business doesn’t bring in enough for you to pay a wage sufficient for your employees to survive on, then you don’t have a viable business. Why should YOU (not aimed at any individual, general question) be taking home huge sums of money, while the tax payer subsides your wages bill/ running costs?

Have any if you actually ever met a person who is a CEO for even a modestly sized company ? One of my ex boyfriends runs a private bank, that’s his job.
I have witnessed his mother in their £900,000 house at the time in 2000 so Lord knows what it’s worth now, order a new kitchen because hers was 10 years old and that’s what you do kitchens only last 10 years dont they 😳
throwaway joints of beef and whole chickens because they’ll be out of date tomorrow and there’s nobody here to eat them.
when emergency guests have landed on them phone actual restaurants and order £400 worth of food to be delivered to the house because what they have in their freezer couldn’t be cooked in time and we can’t keep people waiting.

these people are on a different planet to most of you posting.

They aren’t bad people but they would literally find it impossible to comprehend that you couldn’t spend £145 on a bottle of wine it’s just completely beyond anything that they’ve ever experienced.

My ex’s school fees are the same as what I am pretax. His parents had three children in private education.

Different planet.

That's a good point about lower paid public sector jobs getting cut and the thought is quite grim...I know TA's and other support staff do such great work and make a complete difference in the lives of some of the more vulnerable children. And nation is in such a dismal state it doesn't need to add high unemployment rates to everything that's wrong with it.

I think one problem with this current government, is that taxpayers don't trust them, especially after the recent shambles with so much money wasted during Covid.

I'd like to think if people trusted politicians to actually improve services with a rise in taxes they would support it but then I don't know. Clearly there are some people don't mind public services being in a mess if they can hold onto a bit more of their salary.

I think a better way would be to guarantee a percentage of profits as a bonus for staff. Why do the execs get to not only have better salaries, but bank all the bonuses.

Pay nurses footballers wages

This thread just shows you how much so many people really value and love having someone to look down on. People will literally forego a pay rise if it means other people won't get to have one. Gross.

Amen.

are actually unlikely to get paid holiday

that would be illegal, holiday pay must be paid in the uk

The minimum wage should pay enough to live a decent life, buy a modest house, go on holiday once a year, run a car, raise a child etc. Those with higher education, special skills etc should earn more but not THAT much more.
How much more do you suggest?

average house cost is around £250k so to be able to afford that with a 10% deposit and 3x earnings on two wages I guess from the post, so £40k

and to add to that - if wages hadn't been cut in real terms by 33% over 0 years then the average wage would be £30k =33% so would be £40k

Some senior managers/partners have to put their own money into businesses/take out loans at their own risk, to help build up businesses, employ more people . Would all workers be happy to take that risk?

No, do these partners understand that the increased reward they expect also comes with increased risk? Why should their pipe dream be propped up by the tax payer and slave labour? What makes them so special besides being self obsessed narcissists?

Any employees of those people are taking a risk albeit a smaller one, but also with a smaller reward i.e they actually receive their wages when the business risks don’t pay off and they go bust.

there’s no room for gratefulness, everyone enters into a fairly simple contract.

@Iamthewombat

How many ‘CEOs etc’ earning many hundreds of thousands do you think that there are ?
Let’s say that there are 10,000 people in the U.K. earning at least £500k per year. You take £300k per annum off each of them, presumably before tax so that’s a load of income tax revenue gone, and somehow redistribute it as a boost to minimum wage
Can you do the sums? In case not, I will. You’d get £3 million. Add up the zeros. Let’s say that there are 1 million people working for minimum wage. How much extra would they get per year? If it helps, divide 3 million by 1 million. The answer is an extra £3 per year. Each
This has been explained so many times on this thread. It’s depressing

Yet again, your're the one who needs to do the math and learn some basic figures on earnings.

Hit return somehow!

Anyway, 2.5m millionaires in the UK, almost 200 billionaires with a newt wealth of 590 billion.

A wealth tax of 1% would give an awful lot to 3 million low paid or better still fund a different tax system, that benefits the poor not the wealthy, who every single year just keep getting richer.

As a pp said, everyone who works in a business takes the risk that it may go under. Only a few take the reward when it doesn't.

@DigitalGoat totally agree
I am head of a small local charity - our income is precarious at the best of times and when we get awarded grants the amount is fixed
If we had to pay higher wages all I could do would be make people redundant or reduce their hours which would just mean we could help less vulnerable people (which we do free of charge)
We are already struggling with increase in other costs eg utilities
For anyone above who intimated businesses etc would just have to become more efficient and make savings elsewhere I would love you to work in the voluntary sector for even a few weeks and show me how to do so
We provide essential services - free or at very low cost and are genuinely not for profit - every extra penny we bring in just allows us to help more people

@JaceLancs With the reduction in working benefits a higher MW would bring, the Govt would have to increase support for charities like yours, as they would in funding for adult social care and for pay rises across the NHS.

Pay differentials have to be maintained, as does incentives for business owners, what does need to change is the vast pay given to some, at the expense of the many.

With very high inflation, the £15 min wage might be nearer than we think.

But if you're not paying your own employees a decent wage while you're "helping" then you're just creating more hungry people/draining state funds.