Living Wage.

[username1478]

Apparently the government are planning on a big change to welfare payments. A huge part of the welfare bill is tax used to top up wages.

In order to cut the welfare bill, why don't we have a living wage? Why is the taxpayer subsidising corporate greed?

Before people say that businesses can't afford it, the same argument was used before the NMW was introduced. Apparently businesses were going to go bust - it didn't happen.

I suppose the short answer is that this would then be never ending. We increase wages, shops/services then increase their prices to ensure they still get their profit, and so suddenly the higher wages still aren’t high enough, rinse & repeat.

The problem with so-called "minimum/living wage" is that it perpetuates the problem - which is the too high cost of living. (It also significantly harms some of the most vulnerable in society - people unable to work through illness or caring responsibilities).

The need is to lower the cost of living, rather than constantly try (and fail) to keep wages up with it.

Wages might go up - but they don't keep up with the out of control cost of living. And higher wages will actually increase unemployment - because many smaller businesses simply can't afford it.

One of the main ways to address the issue is housing. The UK needs more social housing asap - across the country. Including 1 and 2 bedroom homes for single people and only-child families, and including suitable homes for elderly and disabled people.

I’d imagine inflation would be a fairly big issue. You’d just get into a cycle of wages going up and then the cost of living going up.

Increasing wages is a great idea if you could convince the fat cats at the top to eat into their bonuses a little bit, instead of increasing costs for everyone.

They won't, so we're just going to have to keep using our taxes to ensure working people can afford a living. All because the richest don't want to be any less rich.

I agree.

We need more affordable rented accommodation to bring down living costs.

The government also need to look at restricting the cost of gas and electricity, the current price cap is no good because companies just treat it as a target rather than a limit.

The government also needs to examine some of the barriers to employment and work to tackle these to help more people into work or to increase their hours of work. Things like affordable childcare (biggest expense for most people after housing), improving social care, clearing NHS waiting lists, improving public transport, etc.

The problem with minimum wage increases is that you have to increase everyone who is just above minimum wage too. Some of us don't work for "fat cats", we work for small businesses of 6 employees who are facing higher wage bills, NI etc.

This would work if those at the top accept a pay cut and profits are shared more fairly with those at the bottom. It would be great, especially for low paid, childless people who are not entitled to universal credit top-up.

Bottom line is right - state should not fund businesses this way

Yes getting out of t he mess might have a few problems but long term it would be the right thing to do

The minimum wage was meant to cause businesses to fail and drive inflation but neither happened

Exactly. You're completely right.

Add in improving the CMS. Currently too many absent parents, including high earners, don't pay for their DC.

In order to cut the welfare bill, why don't we have a living wage? Why is the taxpayer subsidising corporate greed?

My wages are set by the government (teacher) and I still have to claim UC top up to survive. I recently had to do a UC review where you have to submit 4months bank statements and then have to have a phone interview justifying your transactions. It occurred to me that the person going through my statements would be on a lower salary than me, then I realised there must be universal credit employees who also have to claim universal credit top up. Now that is fucked up!
It's not just topping up corporate greed of my point there. The whole system is messed up. Low income but high expense society, if even the government can't pay their employees enough, who can?

I think our main issue is tax. We pay too much. If we raised the income tax threshold to £20k, most families could do away with the complicated top up benefits and just keep more of what they earn.

The daft thing is many people are in the situation of needing to claim UC to top up their wages to the minimum deemed needed to live on but because the tax thresholds are so low still need to pay Tax!

I think this is a really interesting idea, it was suggested by one party before the election, and I’d be intrigued to see the numbers on this to see what difference it would make to the big picture.

It would allow people to keep more of their own money which would maybe incentivise people to work more hours, but the consequence being that there would be fewer people paying tax which goes towards fundamental services (education, health care, the legal system) etc, not sure whether it would be workable or not.

There’s also the fact that a % of those on UC are unable to work, so a higher tax threshold wouldn’t help those people, but less people would be paying into the pot that funds that.

It would be interesting to see all the numbers on this though.

I earn £29k and get UC. I don't have any childcare costs either and have very low rent. I'm a single parent of one. I'd have to earn over £40k to be completely UC exempt I think. It's not really feasible to pay me that salary for the job I do.

This didn't happen with the introduction of the NMW although the same argument was made.

So true. UC is basically a benefit for corporations but used as a stick for attacking poorly paid workers

I don't understand this. I was told you can't get it if you earn even slightly more than minimum wage, but i don't have kids. Do you get it relating to your kids?

I don't mean to imply any criticism or ill feeling that you get UC by the way - if it helps you and you need it I'm all for it!