Do you think the new £38K income visa threshold for UK spouse visas is fair?

[zendeveloper]

It is set at the same level as for work visas.

Feels completely crazy to me, but then, I am also an immigrant (although the changes don't affect me), so probably too sensitive to the topic. Would be interesting to hear MN opinion.

Endless cheap immigrant labour has held down British wages for at least 2 decades. The West needs to abandon the myth of endless growth, which is driving down living standards.

How much of the extra housing, infrastructure, nurses, multiple Prets etc would be really needed if population growth wasn't on steroids and was stable?

Supply and demand is likely to impact care wages, if cheaper o/s staff go down, although it may just be fewer married o/s staff in any case, but if it does impact then wages go up

It means care fees go up though, and that will have other implications

Fewer can afford it and / or council bills are high

High low wage immigration does help keep all wages down, plus increase need for infrastructure, so it’s what do people prefer

Reduce demand. Pay health and social care properly, fund universities adequately, invest in agricultural tech. Attacking the right to a family life is just an easy target.

@zendeveloper - setting an income limit for British citizens is lawful and has already been tested in the courts where the Government won.

Had they had an explicit list of countries to exclude people that would not be lawful.

You can discriminate in law. The point is where you draw the line, and why.

Reducing supply will increase price - which is staff pay.

It’ll have faster impact if higher wages are what you’re after

@Oliotya whilst I agree all those things would be good I don't understand how they'd help decrease migration. Surely they'd just make the UK an even more attractive destination?

Decreasing migration means either running the country into the ground so no one wants to come or saying "no" to some people.

I don't think it needs to work so fast that spouses are separated. They've had 13 years to deal with this, why is it suddenly so urgent? Because its about winning the gammon votes, not bringing down migration for the good of the country.

The question is whether Labour would change it. I did not actually hear that they would.

Categorising everyone who thinks that the current rate of net migration is neither sustainable or desirable as a "gammon" doesn't exactly bolster you position (whatever that is).

The net migration figures were very high. People went nuts. Policies are brought in

Any gov is likely to keep net migration levels to a figure that doesn’t spark outrage

It has so down they go.

If supply falls, wages go up. Given our aging population and higher imo cultural use of care homes (against some other countries) those higher care fees will not be easy. So each time people say they want something it does have impact. Likely to be really hard to pay for care homes

One reason we go after so many foreign students is because Uni funding has been cut, tuition fees (quite rightly) have been frozen for years but Govt funding hasn't compensated.

As for wages going UP, that might be the case in some sectors but not in health, we have 100k NHS vacancies, 150k vacancies in social care, yet wages are terrible, same in social work.
In fact wages have fallen against other sectors, one reason why care workers leave to work in Tesco etc.

Austerity has caused untold harm to this country, even a former Chief Sec to the treasury is on record as saying it was a mistake and UK should have been borrowing, to invest, post 2010 when interest rates super low, now we are borrowing to try and fix issues, but failing, at very high rates.

There are currently 152,000 vacancies in adult social care.

Low pay is a symptom of local authorities being long term under funded. (see Kings Fund report). Local authorities have seen their central funding cut by 21% (with variation county to county, the most deprived areas seeing more significant falls).

Where is the social care workforce plan to deal with this?

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/2023/07/vacancies-falling-but-social-care-still-needs-long-term-workforce-plan

You’re right some sectors go up as they adhere more closely to simple supply and demand / price. I remember Itsu guy saying he’d had to lift staff wages three times and wanted a two year visa for young lower wage labour

If the price is fixed it doesn’t work in the same way.

How do care home set their staff wages? Are they independent or linked to a standard amount

I’m a health care proffessional in a shortage role, my partner is American and has a PhD but earns far under the new limit as a researcher (in a healthcare research role funded by the British government). His lab doesn’t really get any British applicants for jobs that are qualified for the roles.

If we moved to the US I wouldn’t be qualified to work as I only have a undergrad in my healthcare specialism not a masters. I also morally don’t want to work in healthcare there.

These new rules are likely to mean we need to make some very hard choices. It’s just so unfair.

That's nonsense. The median annual earnings are £38,382 for men and £33,740 for women in the UK according to statista.com. The increases financial threshold is no way fair.

Precisely. It’s certainly not about the best interests of the Country, anyone that thinks that’s what this is about is deluded.

That's just terrible @NotSaltysalter I hope you find a solution.

@NotSaltysalter yiu shouldn’t have to leave the UK, and we can’t afford to lose people like you or your partner. If you do have to go then consider Australia or NZ, have a look at Ireland as well.

I may be completely out of whack, but is £38k enough for a family to live on? I really don't think it is in the south east where lots of immigrants want to live to join existing communities. So then the obvious solution would be benefit top ups and housing support which isn't sustainable.

In an ideal world, we'd accept any immigrant to work and live in the UK but in the real world, we can't afford that.

It's obviously different for refugees who have no choice, but for people who would simply prefer to live in the UK than somewhere else, it's unrealistic to think the UK will accept low earners and their (usually large, not always) families without evidence that they can go a long way to sustaining themselves. Like I said, I actually highly doubt £38k sustains them fully with the cost of living here, let alone less.

@NotSaltysalter You shouldn't have married a foreigner and now can just quietly permanently leave your own country along with any children you have according to some of the people on this thread

So then the obvious solution would be benefit top ups and housing support which isn't sustainable.

Nice justification, but people here on a spouse visa aren't entitled to any public funds. We don't receive any benefits as a family and aren't in social housing.

@WhichIsItWendy / yes you put your finger on it. This figure could be a lot higher. I am not at all convinced it will stay at 38k and I did not hear Labour say they would change it. That was interesting

Why does it need to be enough for a family to live on? There's a higher figure again for foreign children. British children are exempt, obviously, unless you think we should start means testing fertility?

Were you ok with the net migration figures at 750k?

I don’t recall many saying they were, if not what number is more ok

I am a British national who met a man while teaching abroad and came back and went through the whole spouse visa process. It is already absolutely brutal and the increase in wage would have meant we now would not be living in the UK. I got married to my husband in Mexico and came back on my own during the pandemic to teach in the UK and applied to sponsor my husband on my teacher salary (around 27k). I also rented my own flat privately, furnished it, brought my dog over and learned to drive. Due to COVID and the war in Ukraine, our visa took two years to process. We didn’t see each other for two years as none of us could afford to travel and it pushed our relationship to breaking point. Finally my husband was granted his visa. He paid a 1500 NHS surcharge and has now been here for more than a year. He has never had to use the NHS and found a full time job after about a month here. He is still working in the same job and doesn’t understand why there are British people who complain about being unable to find a job when there are so many! He is also learning to drive, speaks fantastic English and can offer business services in another language as us British are incredibly lazy when learning other languages which puts us at a disadvantage. I now work for the NHS as the working conditions in teaching were dire and I had to get out before I lost my mind. Working for the NHS is also hard but I’m the kind of person that wants to work in a public define vocational role and I have never come close to earning 38k. Those of you saying 38k isn’t that much and people can’t live off that amount… I live off much less and have a first class degree working in teaching/NHS. I live in one of the cheapest parts of the country and was lucky to find cheap rent but if the threshold is raised and it causes problems renewing my husbands visa we will have to move elsewhere. So sad as it makes me feel we aren’t contributing anything when we’ve worked so hard and been through so much to do everything right and be the right kind of contributors.