Should minimum wage be linked to company size and/or income

[Iyiyiiii]

If you work for Sainsco (just an example) full time (35 to 40 hours a week) at minimum wage

37.5 hours at minimum wage (£10.42) is £ 20,319
Total benefits: £ 68.96 per week
Universal Credit

Dob 1981
Location south east
Rent to private landlord £800 a month

Why on earth don’t the government make large companies pay more wages.

I think that it should be a company size issue, like the Sunday trading laws. You can't fudge how many people you employ like you can hide/write off profit money

Example, if you employ more than 150 people, your minimum wage goes up to £13.30 an hour

To take home £1,903.25 (min wage + UC) per month, you will need a salary of £27,671.28. (Hourly rate around 13.30)

**figures are not exact

AIBU no this would never work and would stunt company growth

YANBU not a bad idea....

Why should you earn less money doing the same job for a smaller business?

Putting up staff wages puts up the price of produce which then causes staff to ask for higher wages which then puts the price of produce up

So someone working for a smaller company has lower rent and bills?

By your figures, someone doing approximately full time hours for a larger company on minimum wage would be taking home more than most graduate starting salaries. Would you include all large employers or just the private sector?

The minimum wage is to guarantee the workforce a, er, minimum wage. It's not there to punish companies for being "too big".

Why would I go work for the local greengrocer if I could get paid more at the supermarket?

So no one would go and work for the smaller shops limiting their opening hours at best, shutting them down at worst, and supermarkets would end up having an even bigger monopoly in towns than they do now.

Correct me if I’m wrong OP, but is this your point?

The taxpayer should not in effect be subsidising the profits of large companies (such as Sainsburys), by paying Universal Credit top ups to their workers to make their incomes liveable.

Nobody would want to work for small businesses if they could earn more doing the same job at a larger business.

And not everyone gets benefits either.

No. By that logic, who would want to work for a local business? You'd just create a stampede of people wanting to work for a "bigger" company.

Which would mean Sainsbury's, in your example, would have its pick of employees... So it wouldn't need to incentivise people to work there with employee wellbeing schemes, flexible working, or anything designed to make them an attractive employer.

And unless the greengrocer is going to provide subsidised housing, there'd be an obvious issue there, in that they'd probably only be able to afford to hire people who don't have living costs - students or people who have retired and paid off mortgages?

Sainsburys profits last year were over 300 million. Their staff wage bill is not what's driving prices up.

Large supermarkets are profiting by forcing the state and tax payers to pick up part of their wage bill through UC. They could pay their workers enough to live, they choose not to.

Doesn't mean the OPs idea would work, but I understand why they have suggested it.

Your general principle is correct, companies should pay their staff more.

Look at Amazon where drivers are paid poorly and work in dreadful conditions, but Jeff Bezos has money than one can even imagine.

This is capitalism gone too far.

Hard workers are forced to rely on government benefits to top up their wages because companies prioritise profits that go to shareholders.

Yes

I firmly believe that if you work full time hours you should not need any benefits.

If this is pushed out to small businesses they may fail, however big companies have the ability to hide profits, legally, and pay less tax. Number of employees can't be hidden or written off, so it's a good way to identify companies that should be paying more taxes etc

Minimum wage should be higher for all companies. The government should not be subsidising any private companies. MW should be raised up to £12.50 immediately then up to £15 pH over next 3 years

Why do I work for company A paying £13 an hour, when I can work at company B paying £16 an hour, maybe I can't get to company B, maybe the hours are not as good, maybe A doesn't have any vacancies...

I understand what you're saying in principle but it wouldn't work. People who work full time and get benefits don't want to be reliant on benefits, I'm one of them. I work for a small business but I would not work here if I could get more money somewhere else for doing the same job and rely less on benefits. There'd be no incentive to work for a small business.

But then you're punishing people who don't have as much flexibility as others. It would cause resentment in the long run.

So if I work for a company with 150 employees and earn 13.3 per hour, but actually 3 people hand their notice in and we're now at 147 employees does that mean the company can then pay me less for doing the same job?

Interesting - many companies already offer more than the legal minimum if they need/want to attract and retain staff. My employer offers much more than the legal minimum for holiday, sick pay and maternity/paternity leave. We also get a heavily subsidised canteen, a private heathcare plan and a very decent pension.

I agree, people working full time hours should have enough to live on without needing to claim work related benefits. Maybe the answer is to give time limited tax relief, tiered according to company size, and possibly delivered through PAYE to allow smaller and newer businesses to be able to afford a real living wage.

I earn £24k a year. To get completely off benefits (aside from child benefit) I'd need to earn around £50k a year and that's with no childcare costs and rent of £500pm. For someone living in London for example the company would need to pay them a salary of around £80k+ to get off benefits completely, for doing a minimum wage job. Is that feasible? I'm not sure what the answer is.

I understand your logic OP. The government is effectively subsidising business profit. It has always been this way. Perhaps there should be some employer wages tax on profit.

So if you pay your employees a wage low enough to need benefit top ups then you pay a portion of your profits above a certain amount into the social welfare bill. This would protect small businesses.

Benefit claimants frequently get a bashing but nobody criticises the shareholders or the private landlords who are the people who can really make a profit from the welfare state.

What if the large company goes through a bad patch/ shrink and can't afford to pay the higher wages anymore?

Would people's wages go down if the size of the company goes down?

That doesn't sound very stable/ secure for the people working there.

it’s just tough shit really 🤷🏻‍♀️ that’s life unfortunately

not really - I currently earn X, if I movd company I could probably earn say 10% more, but do I want to move? no, I'm happy where I work - I like my team, I like the location.

If I wanted to work in London, I could probably almost double my money, but I choose to work local