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?

the country would be a worse place if the only viable businesses were big business. Many of these provide decent services or add value beyond monetary to places, but they don't bring in tonnes of cash

Indeed. But before covid, I never met anyone running their own business who was hard up. Maybe they were all subsidised by high earning partners.

Covid has changed things I know, but even small businesses need to pay staff fairly.

Well said @eeeeeeeeee. I'm a tory voting lawyer as it happens (maybe not next time though as I'm flabbergasted at how inept our current government is) but i hate this idea that certain people are more important by virtue of the work they do. You are not a better person because you are a doctor rather than a bin man. All of our lives are precious and we are all hugely important in the running of society.

Well, you may have missed a trick because my partner buys Panama Jack shoes, they have gone up £10 but are great shoes, made in Portugal & hard to get hold off, plenty of people seem to think so too.

Their MW is just 822 euros per month, so quite happy to pay a little extra.

BTW Clarks stopped making shoes in the UK long before the NMW was a significant cost.

Exactly!

If employers actually paid decent wages, then we could reduce spending on government top ups and also actually increase tax revenues.

Here we go...another ''what about'' thread begrudging the fact that people might actually want a living wage and be able to pay their bills...

We should really stop the Daily Mail propaganda or insist that everything should be a race to the bottom where poor people are expected to know their place and be content with scraps.

That's what got us into the current Tory nightmare.

Nice bit of snobbery as well: I am sure you were grateful when the little people at Tesco made sure you got food and deliveries during lockdowns but now we don't want them to get ideas above their station, do we?

I find it bewildering that people can come up with this type of posts.

I think we do need to have an economy where no one working full time is supported by the state / unviable business is supported by the state

Just raising NMW probably won't fix this
Wealth redistribution, a more equal society is also needed - valuing the bin man or support worker as well as the accountant

There probably does need to be some reward for hard difficult or dangerous work

A shake up of the economy is needed - people not wealth first

The point I was making is that in order to afford our nursery bill along with everything else I have to take a second job. I've been qualified in my field for 10 years but still don't earn enough.
I shouldn't have to work 2 jobs, especially as one is full time just so we have enough to get by.

Yes many many small, medium and likely large businesses will struggle/close if they have to put wage rates up. Not all businesses have fat cat rich owners.

Which will mean unemployment rates go up as businesses fail or cut staff.
It's going to be a rocky few years ahead - hopefully things can stabilise at a fairer level.

A business should rely on paying low wages for success, but equally, you need something to encourage the entrepreneurs to take the risks in starting or building businesses or the country will just stagnate/decline.

Or do we really want to become a state where everyone earns the same wage, irrespective of what we all do? It is an option?

We would probably need a hard look at what is enough for the basics as it's pretty clear that 2 people with the same income after housing can have widely different ideas as to what is sufficient for basics - one persons barely surviving is another's luxury

Or do we really want to become a state where everyone earns the same wage, irrespective of what we all do? It is an option?

It is if you aren't arsed about having no healthcare service or probably education sector. Surely the better answer is for the government to get a handle on access to affordable housing, investing public money more efficiently, reinstating services that have been cut to not only provide more jobs but to give people a better chance at life, figuring out how to ensure the upcoming energy price apocalypse isn't repeated, and to continue to improve access to education/re training for those who want it.

I think what we need to do to start with is to admit that Tax Credits and UC are subsidising the employer, not the employee, and pay the money directly to them. This would then stop the stigmatisation of low wage workers and pass the blame onto where it is due. Imagine the outrage there would be when people heard how many millions companies like Amazon were getting in benefits despite the owner earning trillions. People would then be more happy to accept a higher minimum wage.

The government could continue to subsidise small businesses, but I think there would no longer be an appetite for subsidising huge companies and paying so little to nurses, teachers etc.

A better rule is that CEOs can’t make a salary higher that 12x the lowest paid employee. So for 30k that would be 360k if you read that and thought “that’s not fair on the CEO” you’re the problem.

The company went into administration due to customers not wanting to pay slightly higher prices, and "waiting for the sale". I lost my job with no notice the week of lockdown 1, along with 50 colleagues, and had to claim stat pay from the government.
I would love to see just how many companies have customers willing to pay high enough prices (in one large increase) to support a 57% wage increase.

As for Clarks, they wanted to keep charging £48 for a pair of leather ballet pumps so they moved production to China, Cambodia, India and Vietnam. Perhaps we "missed a trick" not doing that?

But with fixed costs going up you’re going to have to raise your prices shrinking your potential customer base. A raise in NMW would affect your customers as well.

I favour concentrating on the affordability of living over raising NMW in a dramatic move that would be turbulent but likely even out over time, but there are wider pros/cons than just your wage bill with a rise in NMW.

So some people would rather low wages - low enough to compete with Indian wages

But they don't want to live like the lower paid Indian people do- they want the state to pick up the tab for a western life? With food and fuel security?

There has got to be a better way

Well, you never said any of that did you? You said "We could no longer afford their cost prices because Brexit weakened the pound, so we dropped them as a supplier."

no mention of LD's or your company going bust.. i'm not a mind reader.

Portugal didn't have a MW increase of 57% & Clarks didn't make the bulk of their sales making ballet pumps, they made great shoes in the UK and shifted production to the far east for a huge variety of reasons, not least business rates and energy costs, land values meant building on their former factory space was very profitable too.
Their machinists earned very little.

So some people would rather low wages - low enough to compete with Indian wages

These people

But they don't want to live like the lower paid Indian people do

are not these people.

Well I'd quit teaching to pull pints in a flash. It's fucking ridiculous.

I find it quite interesting that there is talk on this thread of high living costs such as £1000+ for childcare. But what is the price of childcare going to look like if the minimum wage is £15 - probably a lot lot more!!

If minimum wage went up to £15, I guess you would get quite a bunching up of salaries. In the 90s there would be at least a noticeable difference between the person on the lowest wage (nmw did not exist) and their supervisor.

Now the supervisor if in catering or child care gets about 50p or £1 per hour more, which begs the question, what is the point of being the supervisor.

It is ironic (nonsensical) small, mild capitalists are in favour of the tax payer funding in work benefits. Because small employers. Survival.

When did in full time employment but still receiving benefits because wage wasn't sufficient originate?

Why are ordinary tax payers subsidising low wages?

That's exactly it, so where is the motivation for promotion. Also, although large companies eg costa can take the hit (but they will probably pass the cost onto customers so no one gains overall), small businesses eg the little coffee shop etc won't be able to afford it.

I get 20p an hour more for being a team leader in a supermarket. Our manager has left and until we get a replacement us 3 team leaders are expected to run the department. For 20p an hour more than the pickers and the same money as the drivers. Only benefit to being a team leader is more hours. Which honestly is the only reason any of us do it.

And I don't want to apply for the actual manager role because I've seen what it's done to our last 2 managers and I've also seen the state of all of the instore managers. Nope.

I don't think we should increase the minimum wage but we should stop taxing people who are only earning that amount. Somebody earning minimum wage working 40 hours a week is going to be paying tax and national insurance. If we raised the tax and NI allowances to £20,000 then people would take home much more of their earnings. Anyone earning over £50,000 should pay more to compensate. This would also remove a lot of the burdon of taxes and bureaucratic nightmare from small businesses and help the economy to get going again.

No thanks. I earn over 50k and pay more than enough tax. 50k is not a high salary anymore given housing costs etc. Why would someone work hard, get qualifications etc only to end up with virtually the same take home pay as someone on minimum wage?

I would support the idea of a maximum wage though. Some people are earning ridiculous amounts including bonuses.