to remind people that the minimum wage was introduced by the Labour Government - and all the Tories have done is rebrand it as the Living Wage

[cakeorwine]

National Minimum Wage Act 1998 - Wikipedia

The Living Wage - which is the minimum pay someone who is 23 or above can get is going up to £11 an hour.

Jeremy Hunt to confirm national living wage to rise to £11 an hour - BBC News[

""Since we introduced [the national living wage], nearly two million people have been lifted from absolute poverty," Mr Hunt is expected to say.
"That's the Conservative way of improving the lives of working people. Boosting pay, cutting tax."
"

Excuse me - you rebranded the minimum wage, so don't take any credit for introducing it.

I do wish someone would pull the Conservatives up on this when they try to take credit for it.

These truth twisters will steal anything that's not nailed down if they like the look of it. Give it 5 years and they'll be reminding everyone that ULEZ is their idea and not a dastardly plot by Sadiq Khan to undermine all drivers everywhere. Tossers.

@onebornsecibd I'm educated to postgraduate level and have a job that requires a minimum of a BA, experience and to pass a test. I would be getting UC top ups if I didn't have savings because my boss is a capitalist pig of a multimillionaire. I stay because I live in Wales and its a rare fully remote job in publishing. I don't want to move to South England. The others (highly educated and skilled editors, copywriters, illustrators and Web developers) likely have their own reasons too

The idea, sadly, that getting a degree will ensure good pay isn't always true. I wish I'd been encouraged to become a plumber. There's a valuable and well paid profession.

I would agree with you Babs. I had a holiday job in a call centre in mid-90s. The team leads were on about £12k. Crucial difference to now of course is that is was a decent enough wage to become a homeowner!

I haven’t read the whole thread so this might have been said already. I think there’s a difference?

National minimum wage is a legal requirement. There are different bands for 16-18, 18 -23, 23 plus

National Living Wage/ London living wage are recommended, but not required

There isn’t a NLW recommendation for under 23.

You haven't read the thread.

The National Living Wage is part of the National Minimum Wage. It is compulsory for people 23 and over.

The real living wage is separate and not compulsory.

BBC explains it well

What is the minimum wage and how much is it? - BBC News

Yeah I agree.

So the minimum wage in 2010 is equivalent to £9.80 ish now. So not far off what it actually is. Considering the cost of living has spiralled since then I'd say people on the "living" wage are worse off than people were back then on the minimum wage.

But that “equivalent” is calculated by taking into account inflation. The minimum wage has increased by more than inflation.

That's your choice to work in that job and industry..... you are clearly not an unskilled worker

Publishing is notoriously bad for pay. I tried it out 20 odd years ago and just couldn’t believe how low, so changed sector

Meant to quote other pp

@EasternStandard it is pretty dire! But I'm trying to build up a portfolio/skills and eventually move onto (the hopefully more lucrative) journalism.

@onebornsecibd indeed, it's my choice to stay, while I plot to seize the means of production and overthrow our greedy capitalist overlords. Each to their own.

I@Hubblebubble get on LinkedIn and search for another job. Simple.

@onebornsecibd it's really not that simple. Thanks to the great return to the office, everything suitable in publishing is either hybrid London/Birmingham or freelance (no pension, no annual leave, no job security and the great faff of tax returns). I look at job listings everyday. I know you want to believe things are simple and clear cut, but they aren't always. Plus, like many women, I need my career to fit around my caring responsibilities for old and young. Remote flexitime let's me do this, for a pittance.

That's crazy.

Many work places have a salary scale, with % differences between each level. From bottom rung to just below directors.
Now when you put up the bottom, by X percent, you need to increase the levels above by roughly the same to keep the differences in place.

Can you even begin to imagine the costs to employers? It's not just the actual raise of net pay, but the employers NI and employers pension increases too, it would wipe out many businesses.

What you'll see, is more redundancy situations and work spread across people stressing them out, to pay for the increases. It already happens now, depending on industry.

Gove said it today that the National Living Wage was one of the achievements of the Conservative Government.

I would love to challenge him on that.

Wasn't the Labour minimum wage going to bankrupt small businesses, reduce the owners to a state of penury and lead to lazy grasping workers living the life of Riley on money that rightfully belonged to owners and shareholders? Etc. Quite different from the Conservative Living Wage, acknowledged by Govey to be A Good Thing.