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?

The purpose of a system is what it does. It is delivering profits and power to the higher echelons of society and impoverishing the working masses. It is working exactly as expected.

Now, if you wish to change this state of affairs, you’ll need of massively overhaul the entire global economy to stop such a thing subverting any changes from outside national borders. We all know the rise of globalisation and neoliberal policy in the ‘80s meant that you were effectively competing with the global labour market, not just your national peers. This is the consequence of that system running for forty years.

There isn’t really the resources to face everyone on the same, relatively decent salary anyway. The world is predicated on debt expansion to paper over the cracks of an economy that can no longer cash the cheques it writes with physical resources. Instead, it’s all financial games, with companies having massively inflated stock values leading to market caps in the tens of billions for, what? A company that has an app and runs third party taxis? A messenger app that allows funny face filters? Real estate that has yet to be fully built in China?

It’s all a house of cards. And welcome to the unravelling, because the fact that people are questioning the very core of how we live due to the cost of living, is a pretty good indicator that the winds of change are in motion now.

I wonder how the proles will react to their better elites telling them there’s no more money, just eat cake.

@WhileMyGuitarGentlyWeeps Nobody is saying factory or shop workers don't work hard, they very clearly do and are realistically the backbone of the UK.

People are saying why get into £50k debt, study for 8 years and work in awful conditions causing terrible mental issues for £16 per hour when you can work in a manually hard but job straight out of school with no stress outside of work hours for £15.

Everyone would want an increase in salary pushing prices up. Otherwise you get a universal basic income which would just lead to skills shortages and even wider spread poverty.

Increasing the minimum wage doesn't increase prices to the extent it puts us 'back to where we started'. Theres a lot of studies done on this.

I think you'll find that most people saying low wages should be increased are saying that those already earning more should increase as a reflection too. Unless you're just ignoring that

Too many people have degrees. So they shouldn’t be paid much higher. When my 80 year old dad went to uni 1% of the population went. Nowadays it’s a massive percentage. You don’t have to be clever or particularly intelligent to go (I’m proof of that myself).

Sorry, I wasn't suggesting that was your take but others on the thread who think the ecomony is dependant on big companies raking in as much profit as possible for their share-holders.

They could take less profit, pay their employees more which would stimuate spending etc etc. Instead, people are getting spending less and getting into dept. What a shit show. But we'll put up with all sorts of shit in this country so I have no hope that any of it will change.

Sainsburys: chief executive Simon Roberts picked up £2.8 million in bonuses for the year to March 5, on top of his £875,000 a year salary and other benefits. His mammoth pay deal includes a £1.7 million annual bonus and £1.1 million in long-term incentive scheme shares.

Tesco: The chief executive officer of Tesco Plc received 4.7 million pounds ($ 5.7 million) last year

Marks and Spencer: CEO on 2.6 million

Median pay for a FTSE 100 CEO increased from £2.46m in 2020 to £3.41m in 2021. CEO pay has also surpassed the £3.25m median recorded in 2019. The research shows that the median FTSE 100 CEO is now paid 109 times the median UK full-time worker, up from 79 times in 2020 and 107 times in 2019.

God you're right: those poor, poor CEOs and their massive, massive salaries.

@WhileMyGuitarGentlyWeeps firstly because obtaining 2 degrees incurred a lot debt. It involved working 2 jobs around university. Nursing jobs (I'm not a nurse) involve making life threatening decisions, unsociable working (including nights). So whilst it may be lovely to work in a caring profession (for a pretty crap wage). Who is going to be motivated to incur thousands of pounds of debt and being responsible for people's lives when they could get the same pay stacking shelves. Yes, minimum wage workers have very tough and demanding roles but not all. Why have huge responsibility and student debt when you can stack shelves in Aldo for the same pay.

The best solution is surely supporting people into accessing training/qualifications/experience which helps them progress rather than to stay in low paid jobs forever.

Are there enough higher paying jobs for everyone then? Just waiting for everyone in retail or whatever to retrain?

I do have to laugh at the 'why will people aspire to become nurses and teachers and police, when they can work in a supermarket or factory for the same wage?' line people are trotting out. And here's me thinking people went into these 'caring' professions for the love of the job. Clearly not LMFAO!

They might have gone into the professions for the “love of the job” but that doesn't mean they're going to stay in them. Many professions are very stressful with a lot of responsibility. If the salary is no higher than working in a supermarket, many people will switch to work in a supermarket.

The people saying we obviously want empty and derelict shops if we think fair wages should be standard. Absolutely yes I do. I'd rather an empty, dead high street than one full of 'businesses' that think it's fair to pay poverty wages. Hopefully it'll bring the property prices down with it.

The council run services need actual funding, care services are having major issues with recruiting and keeping staff. Maybe if they paid a fair wage for the incredibly difficult work they'd retain more staff. Then the services would have more experienced people and be less likely to be struggling the way they are now so would become more efficient.

Who was sympathising with the CEOs? They don’t need sympathy. Are you deliberately misreading the post or did you genuinely not understand it?

I asked whether anyone had calculated how much extra the people working for minimum wage in those businesses would get if the CEO worked for nothing and his or her salary and bonus was divided up between them. Have you?

This thread is a delightful illustration of the tactics working. Divide and conquer, look out for number 1, watch out for "them".

It's what the government did with immigration, benefits, disabled people, the EU - othering, turn people into "others" hint at them being "the problem" then sit back and watch the people fall over themselves to keep everyone down.

The race to the bottom is accelerating again.

Also op you keep bleating on about the wage spiral, please go and do some basic reading around the reasons this is not the issue (or believe the evidence in front of you of lower wages and higher inflation - it's right there out in the open)

'Most companies'

Ok.

www.fsb.org.uk/uk-small-business-statistics.html

There were 5.5 million small businesses at the start of 2021.
Compared with the previous year, the private sector business population decreased 6.5%
At the start of 2021 there were 5.5 million small businesses (with 0 to 49 employees), 99.2% of the total business. SMEs account for 99.9% of the business population (5.5 million businesses).
SMEs account for three fifths of the employment and around half of turnover in the UK private sector.
Total employment in SMEs was 16.3 million (61% of the total), whilst turnover was estimated at £2.3 trillion (52%).
Employment in small businesses (with 0 to 49 employees) was 12.9 million (48% of the total), with a turnover of £1.6 trillion (36%).
In 2021, there were estimated to be 5.5 million UK private sector businesses
1.4 million of these had employees and 4.2 million had no employees.
The UK private sector business population is made up of 3.2 million sole proprietorships (56% of the total), 2 million actively trading companies (37%) and 384,000 ordinary partnerships (7%) in 2021.
2.7 million private sector businesses as registered for VAT or PAYE, 48% of the estimated total population.
Sixteen percent of all SMEs were operating in Construction, compared with less than 1% in the Mining, Quarrying and Utilities sector.

A couple of things here.

1. There are a hell of a lot of small businesses.
2. Small businesses appear to be currently struggling. They are likely to be the most affected by a minimum wage increase. It would make the problem worse.
3. They employ a lot of people. People who might end up with no jobs.
4. Hidden in these figures is also the one about how people set themselves up as sole traders. This is either as a legal tax dodge or because bigger corporations insist on it as a legal tax dodge or to reduce employee rights.

It might be worth looking at what you could do with regards to No4 ahead of a possible minimum wage rise as its probably more useful and will have less side effects.
It would be deeply unwise to neglect the impact on small businesses by a minimum wage rise and that would undermine entreprentuership and likely lead to more people being employeed by bigger companies and thus these companies having MORE not less power. How do you encourage new start ups when you make it harder to employ new employers and build from nothing? Without thought to this in tandem with a wage rise, its like shooting yourself in the foot just to score points.
Unions have power over employees in large organisations. They don't get much from people who are in small businesses. They don't represent the interests of small businesses and their employees well as a result. Unions actually, ironically, benefit from massive companies and public sector organisations so their interests are weirdly aligned. This does not necessarily align with workers rights.

This is without considering the impact on skilled jobs which require degree level entry in medium paid job sectors.

Whats the point in raising wages, if you end up with staff shortages in key sectors as a direct result?

Whats the point in raising wages, if you are trying to use it as a blunt instrument to tackle inflation. Unless you look at other structural changes, you are actually achieving the sum total of FUCK ALL.

Yes, people should be paid what they are worth and be able to afford the cost of living. The minimum wage as the only tool to achieve this, is a nonsense. Why no suggestions to limit excessive shareholder bonuses? Why no talk of wage ratios between the lowest and highest paid?

We KNOW that the UK has the biggest gap between the highest paid and the lowest paid in Europe. THATS the problem. That doesn't mean we should raise the minimum wage though. Its about whether the cost of living is too high - thats stuff like the rental sector. We KNOW that there are massive conflicts of interest between Tory MPs and the building sector and the landlord sector. We also know that there are various Union leaders who think everyone should get a few house and are happy to live in a council house despite being able to afford the private sector. BOTH positions on this are fucked in the head and don't reflect the reality of experience of the general population. 'The workers' aren't really being well represented in terms of their best interests by either as a result.

You tackle the cost of living - thats housing and the glaring energy issues FIRST. The minimum wage thing is a red herring in real terms and would only create more problems if you don't acknowledge the side effects it would create.

I have a real beef with MN over the small business thing: the number of threads that come up and say 'contact your union' or 'contact HR' which are completely oblivious to the millions of people who work for small companies or are self employeed contractors.

The problem is the COST OF LIVING NOT WAGES AS SUCH.

This has risen due to more red tape with europe, the cost of the pandemic and the cost of energy and Nimbysm. The effect has been greatest on small busineses, with most large multi-nationals being able to capitalise on market competition finding it harder to compete due to economies of scale.

Its NOT about wages.

The Union leaders are far too often are fucked in the head self serving pricks who are just as out of touch as corporate CEOs.

People wouldn't walk into higher paid roles though would they, but doing a job for x years before moving on is reasonable. Then the cycle continues. As is many don't want to.

And here's me thinking people went into these 'caring' professions for the love of the job. Clearly not LMFAO!

And rightly so. Its a job. Yes people who do these jobs and put up with the barrage of shitty conditions have something inside them that loves the job (or did at one point anyway), but they should be paid fairly and treated fairly without relying on the fact they see it as a vocation or whatever. There's severe shortages across the board though in healthcare and teaching to name just 2- I'm sure all of these who feel people should do the job because of a sense of duty will be lining up.

They won’t seriously consider putting a windfall tax or higher tax on wealth because, well, we have a Tory government.

If you don’t want underfunded public services & increasing wealth inequality, don’t vote Tory. If you want a fairer/more equal society, don’t vote Tory. It’s that simple

You can see from the comments here though that a lot of people in these well trained jobs wouldn't work in them if there were alternatives. So if people wanted to train and take their places seems like a swap to me.

Also if employers had to make jobs more attractive to keep hold of people, better working conditions for nurses, police etc. are only positive.

Those ‘obscene’ payouts to shareholders are what is funding our pensions though, or at least those of us without government backed pensions. So destroy profitability in private companies and you create another problem of supporting the retired.

The complex structure of benefits and tax credits, cooked up by Gordon Brown and that no one has dared reform, mean that there are lots of people ostensibly on £10/£11 an hour who are actually taking home more than £15 already because of benefits/tax credits. I wa amazed to read in a thread yesterday that someone eating £54k could in some instances be entitled to benefits

@Redqueenheart

Firstly, have I lectured anyone? No. Read the post correctly. (Well I have now, to you..)

Secondly, the whole point of my post was If higher wages are to be successful company profits WILL need to be curbed. Read the post correctly.

Thirdly, I've said CEOs profits (where high) should be mandated to be less to ensure people can live comfortably (my words were heat, eat, holiday, afford life outside of basic survival). Read the posts correctly.

Finally, I've never said lower paid workers should tough it out and shut up. I said at present a £15 per hour pay rise won't actually result in a result in real terms pay rise, as corporate greed will increase costs to maintain excessive profits or small companies will crumble. Other things need to be in play at the same time to make it work. Read the post correctly.

I'm happy to be wrong, and to be considered unreasonable but not by someone who can't grasp my point and argue back to me using my own points.

Minimum wage should absolutely be higher - however - I work within a local authority and have just worked out that my current salary works out at what £15 an hour would be. Without all pay grades receiving the same uplift where would be the motivation for anyone to do the higher responsibility jobs when they could get paid the same wage to be cleaning to loos or doing the admin tasks of a much lower grade?

Yes. It's the focus on profit that is wrecking the economy. Companies are legally obliged to put profit to sharegholders before fair pay or customer value, so if costs rise they will be passed on to consumers so shareholders get their cut. We need to move away from a profit-first system to one which places equal emphasis on staff pay and customer value.

My point was that there is no snobbery from people who have a degree looking down on those that don't, as was implied here by several posters. Just that the actual dedication to learn a skill or acquire advanced knowledge should be rewarded.

The percentage of university goers doesn't matter. I cannot think of a single job that requires a degree and only offers minimum wage, though no doubt someone will find a rogue employer who gets away with it somewhere.

The point was that if you raise minimum wage for an unskilled position to the same level as the earnings of someone who has a degree, that degree may as well not be bothered with - it comes with thousands of pounds of investment and many wasted years of study (one could even argue that it would make unskilled workers better off as they would have had the opportunity to earn at an earlier age and therefore build up more in pensions - how skewed would that be, to be effectively punished for taking on more education?)

And as for the poster who pointed out that people are now rolling out strikes even though they don't earn minimum wage - yes, that is for reasons I've already given, because the gap gets ever smaller between those on many years of experience and with much more responsibilities and those who bring with them the bare basics of being able to stack shelves.

Just to say, I currently earn £15.50ph if I break it down. I worked really hard to get where I am, it just doesn't pay fantastically. So that means I've got years of wasted qualifications when I in fact could still be on the tills in Primark and earn ever so slightly less with way less responsibility.

Let’s keep the poor in their place. How dare they have enough money to be warm and fed.

So everyone would get paid more and then everything would cost more and those on the minimum wage would be in the same position.