Will everyone be on it soon?

[AGreenBanana927]

Minimum wage going up by nearly 7% in April and past few years have seen some large increases in percentage (rightly so) but myself and friends we arent getting that much and the gap between my wage and min wage is getting closer and closer when wealth inequality getting worse

AIBU that soon a lot of jobs will just be on min wage soon and that the UK actually needs a maximum wage?

Once minimum wage catches up to my wage (won’t be long) I shall be finding a MW job which is way less stressful and skilled that my job as I’m not working for the same pay with extra stress and responsibility. Not saying MW aren’t also stressful, I shall just find one that is less hassle than my current job.

So you don't care what wage you are on, as long as it's higher than minimum wage? Odd, think you are concentrating on the wrong thing.

I agree with you. It devalues what you are doing now if you’re pay rises are not in line.

As @BereftBeyondBeliefsays, when this happens, I would be looking for jobs with less responsibility, and applying for them.

The problem is, until people on the just-over-min-wage bands DO start leaving and their roles can’t be filled, employers will of course keep salaries as low as possible. And in many areas, those jobs will be filled quickly anyway by those job hunting.
Low responsibility roles may exist but they’re still quite high effort - most big, minimum wage industries/companies are cutting costs everywhere and expecting more work to get done than ever before.

I don’t know what the answer is - I do think some drive needs to come collectively from people refusing to work for so little and leaving, so companies reevaluate what to pay for more skilled roles. But it’s something companies only really do if they’re forced to.

This whole discussion needs to be tied into benefits payments and how the government, by providing benefits to those who are in work, actively subsidizes companies that pay low wages.
The government enables the whole system and blames those stuck in low paid jobs.

Totally agree. We looked at my DH salaried job, when he first started around 9 years ago he was earning a few pounds per hour above minimum wage. Now, still in the same job, despite 'pay rises' it is less than a pound. Not sure how April will change this but agree it is likely to be in line. It will make other jobs seem more tempting.

Once minimum wage catches up to my wage (won’t be long) I shall be finding a MW job which is way less stressful and skilled that my job as I’m not working for the same pay with extra stress and responsibility. Not saying MW aren’t also stressful, I shall just find one that is less hassle than my current job

Absolutely!

I agree companies need to step up and pay better wages because a few of us are thinking the same!

I can earn more stacking shelves, ok a difficult manual position, but mentally less stressful.

But the government also pays NMW in a lot of roles. Next week a lot of our (public sector) admin staff will need a pay rise to bring their salary up to NMW. This has happened every April for the last 2/3 years, despite them receiving a pay rise at another time of year.

Plus many people on NMW do not receive any benefits. It's only if you have DC and are single or your partner is also on a low wage/not working. Couples who both work full time, with or without DC and single people without DC rarely get their income topped up by benefits even if on NMW.

But the OP's point about NMW 'sweeping up' a lot of jobs that used to pay quite a bit more than NMW is correct and has been for a number of years, now pay a similar amount.

I must say I struggle with it too. We have one employee who we took on two years ago and at the time paid her £11.50ph for an office junior role in Staffordshire. We have given her yearly pay rises but MW has caught up so much that now she is only just earning above it. But her job hasn’t changed, she is still “worth” the same to the business as two years ago.

She wants to maintain the gap between her wage and mw and doesn’t understand that it isn’t us who’ve changed the wage, it’s the govt. For our business, she isn’t suddenly worth more, she does a basic job, fairly competently. If we have to keep increasing her wage well above MW, we would honestly probably get rid of her and find someone significantly better and pay them more and get them to do more.

she is still “worth” the same to the business as two years ago

I have worked for the same company the last 2 years, there is more work on me than when I started, a lot of colleagues left so I have taken over some of their work, introduced new procedures, trained other colleagues, I’m run ragged!

2 years experience is worth more - hence why people leave.

I can’t see employers raising wages for people who are on more than NMW due to the increased costs of NI. There may be a few companies that can afford to do it but the sole aim is always going to be profits.

But the whole point is you won't get someone significantly better than you've got, for a job paying not a lot more than minimum wage.
My experience of this situation was that the junior left, the company imagined by increasing the wage they'd get someone better. They actually struggled to recruit and got someone less good than the person who'd left, for more money!!

Everybody says this. Oh I'll go and stack shelves/do a "stress free minimum wage job" but very few do and many who do don't last/deeply regret it very quickly.

Because many of these "stress free" jobs are not stress free at all. They are labour intensive, involve getting abuse from the public, have irregular shift patterns/working hours, minimal holidays, zero company benefits except the bare legal requirements and so on.

They are jobs working with the elderly and disabled, young children, in supermarkets or warehouses. Ironically most of the jobs once classed as "key workers" who worked through all of the above mentioned conditions x100 for the same minimum wage during COVID times - except now that's forgotten about we call them "unskilled workers" and act like the jobs are cushy alternatives because they're getting something slightly closer to a living wage, even though it really isn't because of how everything else has skyrocketed in costs over the years.

That’s what I mean though - it would, in some ways, be better to pay a chunk more and get a better employee. But this young woman is nice enough, she’s got two young kids and she isn’t bad enough to fire, but she isn’t “worth” more with the tasks she does.

I wish she was better. She is competent but no more. She’s fine, she’s not terrible, but she makes mistakes, is pretty lazy and basically does the bare minimum. We’ve tried to increase her responsibilities but she doesn’t want anything more.
And that’s fine - we have enough low level work for her, but she isn’t “worth” the £14 or £15 an hour that she would like.

People look at some earning £10k more than minimum wage (average salary) and think they must be loaded in comparison.

If they have a student loan, it’s an extra £500pcm after tax.

Totally agree. In-work benefits for FTW are a benefit to business, not to individuals.

But why should people who work on supermarkets, provide social care etc be paid less than other jobs?
We have a social care crisis in this country. Minimum wage jobs are vital to society. They are not inferior roles for inferior people who should be paid less. We need to encourage more people to do them.

Surely it's because minimum wage has increased in line with inflation and COL but wages in some sectors have completely stagnated. I'm on a decent wage but because I work in the public sector it's not increased as much as it should and so my quality of life is very different to 5 years ago. There isn't as much of a gap between the bottom grades and the top. I dont think this is a bad thing but what is rubbish is that the top salaries are increasing more than inflation and so the wage gap is getting worse just with more people at the bottom of it.

I agree with this. A lot of MW jobs are skilled and stressful. Just not valued enough.

It’s not just nmw it’s benefits too. They keep rising with inflation and are not taxed. The whole thing is a mess. The government need to make drastic changes and make work pay, effort and reward.

Haven’t read the whole thread and someone’s probably already said this. But the problem isn’t NMW rising. It absolutely should to keep up with cost of living, and these people will spend money which will be good for the economy.

The problem is non NMW job pay isn’t going up. Senior jobs are pegged back in wage despite responsibilities increasing and no admin staff to support.

I’d be on at least double what I’m on now if I was in America or Australia and I’m on 6 figures. I’m not complaining about my wage as I’m fine, however, it demonstrates to me that this must be the same for all wages.

This is the issue government should address with bodies such as the CBI. Part of the reason the economy is in the doldrums is because of a lack of investment but it’s also because pay is poor and thus not enough cash is circulating through the economy.

2 years experience is worth more

Not necessarily. Over the years, I have worked with people who have done a job for many years, but either have not applied themselves, or are lazy, or are just exchanging time for money, or many other scenarios. What they have is one year experience repeated many times, and not many years of experience. Thus, they are not worth any more than when they started.

Obviously, these people need to be managed effectively too. You can see the effect many times over where people have been bypassed for promotion and can't understand why a colleague who hasn't been there as long as they have was promoted above them. It isn't everyone, but it happens a lot.

The issue for private employers is that for wages to go up in line with , or ahead of inflation, productivity must also increase - output per worker per hour.

Those of their employees on NMW are guaranteed an increase, while everyone else has to vie for the remainder of any productivity gains.

Ultimately wages wise this can lead to erosion of differentials, which is not necessarily a bad thing for society as a whole, but is shit for the worker with stagnating wages - they see real salary erosion.

The legacy of our historic hierarchical management structures is that often, the decision makers will take care of NMW because they have to , and then owners/ shareholders, leaving the rest of the workforce behind inflation.