About half of British workers earn under £15 hour - new Living Wage?

[Melisha]

At the moment about half of the workforce earns under £15 an hour. We need to increase national minimum wage to £15 an hour, lifting many of the workforce out of poverty.
Do you agree NMW should be £15 an hour?

So it's ok for people to work full time and not be able to afford to live, just so long as their labour is funding other peoples pensions?

Most of these poor sods probably can't even afford to pay into a pension.

The fact is people need others to clean their offices, deliver their shopping, look after their elderly relatives etc etc but they don't actually care how these people live as long as the jobs they need them to do get done.

People don't want to pay for benefits and they are concerned about price rises if wages go up so therefore the only alternative is low earners live in poverty. A just reward for 'not working hard enough' perhaps?

How quickly everyone has forgotten the key workers that worked during Covid....

I point this out every time there is a thread on here rubbishing social housing tenants. Where the fuck do they think those on low pay who delivered them their shit during Covid live.

80% of the working population have a workplace pension, so we don't really want these big corporations to stop paying out to the shareholders.

There isn't a simple answer to increase workers out of low pay. I do agree that the gap between the lowest paid and those in higher pay brackets is too large, but the problem is not going to be easily solved.

There are other much more worrying issues that need fixing in order to allow wages to rise. Currently productivity growth is very low, whereas state spending and taxation levels are high. Too many successive governments have failed to address these issues.

Most of that 80% will have a tiny pension. Most would be better being paid £15 an hour.

So the pensions are mainly tiny, but enough money is given to them (via the shareholder profits) to be taken and instead used to give over half the UK workforce a 30% pay rise?

So many people on this thread seem to have a very naive view of economics. All they can see is a raising of wages (which I totally agree with, but there are ways of doing it to minimise overall harm to the economy) and not the flow on effect.

Agree and retail or fast food workers need more money they take to much crap off people. I'm not one of these workers but I see the attitude they get

And people moan 'the service in this country is shit' well it's hardly surprising when the people delivering it are paid too little to live on, are vilified for doing the job they do because of the low wages and any top ups that may be needed (subsidised by the poor old squeezed middle who gets nothing in Return!) and how they should get better jobs if they want to afford to live or woe betide have a little treat now and again, who gets complained at because the service is shit, because there aren't enough people doing it because of said conditions, get abused to the point high street shops have given staff body cams and generally expected to serve their betters, be grateful for the opportunity and shut up about being poor so the £100k doesn't go very far in London crowd can moan and say they pay for everything and shouldn't be resented, despite resenting the people who deliver the services that mean they can earn, and then enjoy their higher income.

I tell you, being treated like that, knocks any shits you could have given about giving good service right out of you given long enough.

That’s true. I’m forever scanning my own shopping whilst one member of staff watches over 8 self serve tills. I think you have to remember the average corporation doesn’t give a toss about its staff. They are all replaceable. They probably should be made to pay staff more/ properly. It’s just funding those rises in the short -medium term.

Put simply a minimum wage is not to allow average people to have increased wealth and better their lives (same for in work benefits) - it's to allow the continuation of exorbitant rents, low wages to qualified staff, high cost of living - food, gas, electricity, water etc - so that the already rich can increase their wealth at the cost of the poor and needy.

That said it's also a heads up to the strivers who have gained professional qualifications in the public sector as to how little they have been valued under the tories. I hope that labour address the way that the public sector has been ideologically and financially punished for over a decade and the negative impact this has had on public services.

So.. let them eat cake 🙄

Well said. What hope have people got?

@Melisha apologies if I've missed it (have read the thread) but pls can you point me towards a source for this info..

I don't doubt it for a moment but a source would help me personally for an unrelated issue that I won't derail the thread with- unless you'd like some context before sharing...

I don't think it's realistic to go from about £10.50 to £15 but it should rise slowly maybe by £1 extra each year.

The nhs pays 11.45 for band 2. They are the absolute work horses of the nhs

Well its great in principle but in reality theres no way on earth I will continue doing my highly stressful NHS nursing job ( qualified 28 years, acute mental health,very very demanding) for £5 an hour more than someone working as a cinema attendant or a librarian or a person serving coffee. I will do one of those jobs instead thanks!!!