Demand for minimum wage hike is too high?

[worriedniece]

I just read this article which demands minimum wage be put up to £15 an hour. www.opendemocracy.net/en/labour-silent-minimum-wage-15-pounds-keir-starmer/

I am a little flabbergasted. I worked out that working 52weeks a year on £15 an hour would equate to a salary of 31k Now given that newly qualified teachers earn £25k a year, a junior doctor is on £29k it seems comparably high. It sort of makes me wonder what's the incentive to go and train for a job/go to uni when you can earn nearly as much working in Tesco. I might be being naive, b it surely a minimum is just that- it's a bare minimum and employers should incentivise the best workers by offering more?

It would be 48 weeks a year wouldn’t it? But I still get your point. Everyone needs to be paid more! My friends who live in countries where the cost of living is brutal, get paid a wage that would make your eyes water over here.

There is another thread about this already running

What is your salary OP?

A salary 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?

Other wages would rise too .

That's what b"minimum" means. It's the least you should be paid and others should be paid more.

As for how we afford it, ask our government of millionaires. Plenty to go around when that lot want money, isn't there.

It would go some way towards correcting the obscene disparity between the cost of living, in particular housing, and wages in this country. As far as the basic premise goes YABVU.

Concerning the issue of relative wages for different jobs yanbu, but this has been the case for a while. We already have this daft situation where jobs requiring education are paid the same as retail and cleaning. I don’t disagree that’s it’s an issue in general, but I wonder why it’s only now that you’ve noticed op.

I wonder why it’s only now that you’ve noticed op.

Yes, I wonder. 🤔 Obviously OP is a very secret champion of low paid skilled workers who's been asleep for a long time.

The problem is the min wage now isn't really a liveable wage with food and energy costs

I earn min wage plus bonus so varies but between 19-25k a year. There's just me, and I can't claim anything

So say take home £1400 after tax, NI, student loan, pension
And paying a mortgage plus all other bills with that by yourself. It's tough

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4618283-aibu-to-not-want-a-ps15-minimum-wage?page=5&reply=119475934

Well if people on minimum wage actually getting paid enough to survive means your wage is less desirable that's your employers problem.

It will fuel inflation, if minimum wage increases so much how do companies pay for it? By putting up prices even further!

I'd like to see the gap between the highest and lowest paid narrow very substantially so I'm on board with this. The wage rise/inflation rise spiral isn't an inevitability if we stop prioritising endless economic growth and move away from our raw capitalist model towards something more equitable for everyone.

Why would it be 48 weeks?

I agree that’s far too much as a minimum. It will never happen anyway but if it did it would cause huge inflation

I absolutely agree with everything you have said here. Any business that is unable to pay a decent living wage to it's staff isn't viable and shouldn't exist. Why should the government top up their staff's wages.

I’d agree with a Pp wages are artificially low as UC allows people to work and claim for children/ childcare/housing. Wages should be high enough to pay for your living costs. Look at the refuse worker strike in Edinburgh, average rent on a one bed flat in Edinburgh is now over 800. Add on council tax plus bills plus food plus transport costs and the sums don’t add up on a basic wage of £20,500 which is 40 hours at current real living wage of £9.90ph.

These are physically challenging, often grotty, jobs that often leave workers with back problems over the longer term. Surely people who work full time should be able to support themselves without top up benefits?

I think minimum wage should increase. People are already having to use food banks and costs are only increased. They need to earn a wage they can live on.

I don’t really buy the people leaving highly qualified jobs or not bothering to train because they can earn as much at Tesco. I’ve done retail and hospitality jobs when I was a student. These types of roles might not require any qualifications but that doesn’t mean they are easy. I wouldn’t go back to working those long unsociable hours and being on my feet all day/night for twice what I earn now.

Where are you getting 48 weeks from?

Then maybe teachers and doctors and such should be paid more. £15/h is barely a living wage at the moment!

My business would go under. It's not that it isn't a viable business as PP said, but with the horrific energy costs and stock costs now, if I had to increase by 5 an hour for every member of staff, I would be fucked. No answers here, just saying. And obviously I wish I could pay more but £10 per hour is the going rate where I am for hospitality and that's what all my budgeting was based on so it's not about not being a viable business if you can't afford a massive increase over night, if you can't pay the going rate, that's different.

It's funny, I'm old enough to remember when minimum wage was introduced and the same old arguements were had then about inflation and yada yada yada.

God forbid we actually give poor people enough money to live on. They'll be wanting actual affordable houses to live in soon and everything!

I believe they are forgetting that we get PAID holiday.

In my opinion, minimum wage should be what you get when you leave school with no qualifications and are looking to build up experience. Once you get that, you should automatically get more money either by getting promotions, qualifications or just annual pay rises from your employer. I think it’s very unethical to pay minimum wage to adults who have been working for years and have families to support.

Most people can't live on the minimum wage. I earn slightly above the minimum wage as does my husband.
I trained for 2 years to do my job but am now having to look for a second job despite doing 40 hours a week, sometimes a bit more. We just can't afford to live otherwise.
Doesn't help our childcare bill for one child is nearly £1000 a month. Is it fair that I'll barely see my children because I'll be working so many hours a week? Or do I deserve it because I wasn't clever enough to go to university?