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?

You said….

“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.”

Thats not where business profits go… If you think that’s Capitalism, do more reading please, What you describe, is much more akin to socialism.. Thats why Russian Oligarchs exist. In Capitalism, the profits go to the shareholders, not one or two members of a party or the govt.

You're just angry.
Actually we are ALL angry...& Rightly.
Junior Drs, tho you won't see if that way, are still ' training '.
80 hrs a week is not that much ...there are many fields & businesses , where that & more is ' normal '
Look, if whoever it is doesn't want such a vocation, then it's just ' wrong for them '.
And yes, it's the amount of beaucracy & red tape that's the biggest problem. That's a Govt & managerial fck up .

Btw, Drs are not the only vocation which asks commitment & dedication. But, it carries a very high social status ( it's not just about money ).

It really isn't worth debating , because there's a LOT more to it, as you will be aware.
Being abusive is just childish

Medicine is NOT that difficult !
What's difficult, is working within a fckef up System & having to be a jack of all trades in addition.

Also, I think you'll find huge numbers of ppl dedicated to what they love, who work 10-12 hrs & more a day.
Wtf else is there to do in life ?
IF one REALLY loves what they do ?
I question that in your case !!

Housing costs are out of control. I saw on Twitter a thread about 2-bed flats in Manchester and Glasgow for 2,000 pcm. Those are cities previously thought of as affordable, and the wages haven’t gone up a whole lot yet rent has seemingly doubled in the past 5 years . I can’t imagine how much they’d hike them up by if the government did actually raise the NMW significantly.

the government needs to get a grip on this housing crisis and fast.

I Agree that Housing is a basic need and people shouldn’t have to rely on the private sector for it.

What people fail to understand is that if it keeps going up people won’t have a job as all the small businesses will shut.

And I’ve already said several times. Tax payers DO NOT fund medical training. It’s funded via student loans the same as any other training.

According to Full Fact in 2017, the government's claim that it cost £230,000 to train a doctor was misleading, because this implied that the £64,300 borne by the student themselves was a cost to the taxpayer. As around 80% of this is likely to be repaid, that is obviously incorrect. Full Fact estimate that the actual cost to the taxpayer of training a doctor (in 2017) was 163,000.

Students pay a maximum of £9,250 per annum in tuition fees, plus any living costs that they incur. If the actual cost of training a doctor exceeds this - and all of the evidence suggests that it does - then someone else has to make up the difference. My understanding is that the taxpayer currently fills that gap.

I would add, I don't resent contributing to the cost of that medical training in the slightest. Quite the contrary. As a society, we need doctors. What I would like to see is the taxpayer contributing to more of the cost of training up doctors, with the proviso that those doctors will remain in the NHS. Same for dentists.

Sheesh…. Student Loan Company is funded by taxpayers…. Who else would loan students 22billion with an indeterminate period of repayment and capped interet rates and a repayment expiry dates.

So technically, one can argue that students pay for their own tuition, but that’s just politics, in reality i would love to know how many students actually repay the full amount…. Can’t imagine it’s very high.

163,000 cost to the taxpayer

Divide by the 5 years they are training for = £32,600 a year
£636 a week

Doctors work a MINIMUM of 80 hours a week unpaid

£636 divide by 80 hours of work = £7.95 an hour

Less than minimum wage!

So they are not costing the taxpayer at all. They are in fact working and being paid less than the legal amount while getting into thousands of pounds of debt.

Lower earners spend therefore creating more business, jobs and wealth. Very wealthy put their wealth in tax free off shore accounts doing nothing for the economy. £15 an hour will be spent on food, fuel, clothes all essentials.

I work in a childcare it's a minimum wage job for everyone except apprentices and room leaders. Put minimum wage up to £15ph and our nursery would close down as fees would go up and parents wouldn't be able to afford it.

Our current day rate has gone to to £55 a day from £52 and weve lost 4 families (total of 5 children) who have both parents working in decent jobs and have all left, accusing the Manager of being a money grabber. The Manager also owns the nursery, doesn't pay herself a wage but the profits work out at less than minimum wage for her.

The 3 year old and 2 year old funding is killing childcare because people believe that it's free and we are overpaid.

LET ME EXPLAIN HOW IT WORKS !!

IN EARLY 1980's Council & Housing Assoc rents were ( as now ) classed as " fair rented ".
As such, any housing benefit was designed via benefits & / or wages, to allow rent to be covered.

Along comes a f*kin arehole , for there can be no polite way of describing the evil vile monster she was....called " THATCHER.

This is how she did it.
These " fair rents " also applied to private landlords.
If you rented a private place, you asked the local Councils " Fair rent officer" ( yep, they really had them !!) To visit your place.
THEY decided what the ' Fair rent ' was worth. !!
The landlord was OBLIGED TO COMPLY.
BRILLIANT SYSTEM ...

BUT , Mad Thatcher didn't want ' fairness. So she abolished it !
Simultaneously selling all council homes at a 70%% discount.
70-80% are now sold off.
Many are now owned by the private landlords we despise.

Free market economy.
Supply & demand.
Don't build Social Housing to replace what was sold dirt cheap.
Pushes up rent prices AND sale prices. Less supply, the landlord leeches can ask more. With NO protection of limit on asking price.

AND Thatcher began putting the limits & caps on HOUSING & BENEFITS INSTEAD .
This placing all lower in the hands of greedy landlords.
Housing isn't an option one can do without !!

Since then, 80/90's , it's been a continual decline , with more & more power going to landlords & the already wealthy.
And all tenant Rights slowly eroded.

Plus....previously, at least private landlords usually had some idea of their responsibilities.....now, as add all over social media announce.....there is SO MUCH PROFIT in BUY TO LETS , that the greedy pigs do not give a famn, nor have a clue, that they actually carry a ' Duty of Care '....& Many think they can sit in sunny villas whilst taking in the vast profits & doing no work. When they want the tenant out, don't give a toss, kick them out, not their problem.

SO FEW PEOPLE NOW UNDERSTAND THIS CHAIN OF EVENTS !
WE HAVE REACHED CRISIS POINT.
THE LEECHES HAVE THEIR VSDT PROFITS & PROPERTY PORTFOLIOS.

AND YOU MUGS ( FOR LETTING IT HAPPEN !) NOW CANT GET A HOME...( well, if your parents are wealthy &/ or landlords you're ok )

My words above should be told in every classroom & every pub LEST YOU FORGET IT WAS NOT ALWAYS LIKE THIS !!

But they don't work 80 hours a week, 52 hours per week in the NHS for all 5 years that they're training.

Having been to tons of open day presentations recently, and having talked to loads of current students at various stages in their medical student journey, that seems very far fetched tbh. If anything, many of the students were complaining that they didn't get enough clinical exposure during the earlier years of their studies. I don't think any of them were doing 80 hours a week 52 weeks per year. Also, from what many of them said, they also weren't really working in the earlier years...more shadowing and observing in order to learn. Of course, they were able to do more as they built up more knowledge and experience.

I am not disputing how much work is involved in the later years of a medical degree, and unlike a pp, I don't think it's acceptable to ask people to do 80 hour weeks, whether paid or unpaid. However, I think your calculations are off, and I do not believe that you spent your 5 years of medical school doing 80 hours of unpaid work, 52 weeks in the year. I don't think any UK medical school trains its students in this way.

I get that you are obviously angry with the system and I understand that you don't feel that you owe anyone anything. That's fine, I'm sure that you've worked hard to get to where you are and that you have contributed lots through your career. None of that changes my view though that state subsidised medical training should be for people who work in the NHS and not for those who go into the private sector. I wouldn't move the goalposts for people who are already in the system, but I would change it for people who are now going into it.

It’s actually a massive issue . I’m a mid earner like you but my partner is just I’ve minimum wage . Every time he gets a benefit as lower tax I end up paying much more than he gets in increase meaning we are worse off .
the reality is mid earners like us are always worse off no matter what happens . The price increases with absolutely nil help affect us a lot more than what people realise . Thank Lis I do t think people realise how much tax we actually pay and how much our real wages are

Sheer fantasy to think inflation can be controlled, least of all by capping wage rises. There is no way the private sector won't be raising wages massively. The horse is bolted, public sector will have to cave & give large rises too. We'll be stuck with high inflation for at least 4-5 years.

I worked in HR when they first started hiking NMW not that I disagreed with it personally but it just meant staffing levels were cut and more work piled on everyone else to maintain profit margins (which were low to begin with) so people were worked to the bone.

Has to come from somewhere

It would be really nice to earn more but as a waitress on minimum wage and a zero hour contact, it would mean I'd get less hours.

Carers should definitely get it.

Not the case, people with more wages spend more money. This increases the economy and keep prices down.

Once again middle income earners would be hit the hardest

Why bother training for 3 years to be a nurse, teacher, paramedic, allied health professional etc and come out with £50k plus debt?!!

All along one could have stayed in a minimum wage job and not had the burden of debt, stress of the study and being economically inactive.

If this happened all the other wages would need to be matched with the same offer. if it doesn’t we will loose a massive part of our critical infrastructure and the burden will break a workforce that is already struggling.

The 3 year old and 2 year old funding is killing childcare because people believe that it's free and we are overpaid.

if the government were playing fair they would fund the 2 year olds free places correctly - but they don't so you can't get a pay rise and be paid properly

ts not NMW that would shut your nursery down but the government fiasco of underfunding the free hours at nursery

Why bother training for 3 years to be a nurse, teacher, paramedic, allied health professional etc and come out with £50k plus debt?!!

nursing, paramedics and ailed health professionals all used to study on the job and didn't attend university - but since student fees have been introduced that has shifted - isn't that a bit strange? why do you need to pay £50k to do a vocation when you previously learnt not he job?

That means the tax payer would only receive a refund in about 25 years’ time when that person becomes a consultant. How much do you think they should pay back given they would already have worked for the NHS for 15 to 20 years and probably have paid a lot of tax in that time, not to mention unpaid overtime and the £40,000 student tuition fees. I'm sceptical that it actually does cost “well in excess of £200k”, to train a medic by the way given that private medical schools charge about £170 in total and they’re making a profit.

Would they only be charged if they treated patients privately or would you charge if they just leave the NHS full stop in their lifetime? I’m sure that you will be very happy for your daughter to sign away her life and promise to pay hundreds of thousands if she dares to do anything that doesn't involve working for the NHS
in her lifetime.

And why should only medics pay back the entire cost of their ducation/training?

If people spend more money, prices go up.

I remember the old nursing schools, but I think the job might have been different 40 years ago. I don't think there were health care assistants so nurses were probably doing more hands on care work. I suppose the job now includes more tasks that require a degree, and HCAs do some of the work nurses used to do.

Midwifery has been proven to be safer with degree educated midwives.

Learning on the job teaches the skills but not the underpinning knowledge behind it.