Minimum wage

[hiddenhome]

The Millipede has announced that the minimum wage will be increased to £8.00 an hour under Labour.

How are small companies going to manage this then? The company I work for employs dozens of workers who are on minimum wage and they can't put the fees up in order to cover the increase.

Also, I'm on £13.10 an hour and won't be seeing an increase in my hourly rate, so I'll have all the responsibility but only be on £5 more than most of my colleagues. After 25 years experience, annual registration fees, extra training and updating and all the responsibility, I don't consider this to be fair.

I believe that people deserve a living wage, but it's easy for Labour to be generous when it's someone else's money

hiddenhome

You think it's better that companies are miserly when its someone else's money? Because the public are effectively paying for our low-wage economy in the form of income-tax breaks and welfare.

Basically, we're subsidising companies to pay employees low wages. Since such poverty wages aren't enough to live on, the tax payer has to make up for the difference in social security costs.

hiddenhome-

And I'm not really sure why you think £8.00 is such a 'burden' for companies. The UK minimum wage is in the low mid-range region for similar developed countries:

www.theguardian.com/money/2012/oct/26/how-good-britain-minimum-wage

So... yeah... not particularly high or 'burdensome'.

Everyone pays minimum wage. When it goes up it goes up for everybody, and shouldn't really impact one company more than another. It is ridiculous that wages are so low that many n working people get topped up with tax credits.

blacksunday If the minimum wage goes up, other employees (the OP for one) will want their salary to rise too, to reflect their status in relation to the lowest-paid employees.
That could lead to industrial unrest, strikes and ultimately rising inflation.

The thing is, in a capitalist society some people will be always be worse off than others. That's how it works.

So, you'd rather see your colleagues struggling on a less-than-living wage because it's more "fair"? Dog in a manger, much?

80sMum-

blacksunday If the minimum wage goes up, other employees (the OP for one) will want their salary to rise too, to reflect their status in relation to the lowest-paid employees.

And they probably should, too, since wage inequality has been rising steadily for decades.

www.neweconomics.org/blog/entry/watch-the-shocking-truth-about-uk-income-inequality

www.equalitytrust.org.uk/resources/multimedia/infographic-income-inequality-uk

That could lead to industrial unrest, strikes and ultimately rising inflation.

Oh noes! Slightly rising the minimum wage so that people don't have to rely on state-subsidies in order to survive will bring CHAOS!!!11

The thing is, in a capitalist society some people will be always be worse off than others. That's how it works.

That's not what this discussion is about. We're not discussing whether everyone should have the same wage. We're discussing whether the minimum wage is currently too low (it is).

People who are earning middle-incomes and who complain about a slight raise in the minimum wage, so that cleaners and carers and other people who work extremely hard every day, should stop shitting on the lowest paid and direct their anger at the top 1% earners - who have seen their wages skyrocket by (sometimes) orders of magnitude over several decades.

If the top 1% were paid a less obscene wage, everyone else could get a substantial payrise.

Correction...

"so that cleaners and carers and other people who work extremely hard every day can afford to live,..."

The taxpayer is subsidising employers to pay too low wages. That needs to stop.

" If the top 1% were paid a less obscene wage, everyone else could get a substantial payrise."

That is probably true, and I agree with you, blacksunday, but is also not what the post was about!

The thing is, a lot of people earn only just above the NMW. If the NMW goes up and reaches parity with those people's pay, then their pay will have to be increased too, otherwise you would have, for example, a cleaning supervisor paid the same as the cleaners she is supervising - so removing any incentive for anyone to take on the supervisory role.

'If the NMW goes up and reaches parity with those people's pay,'

It's nowhere near it and raising it to £8 won't do that, either.

There are two main drivers of continued inequality on the whole: one is income inequality, which as blacksunday says, is horrendous in this country, approaching turn of the 19/ 20 century levels: the other is redistribution networks. Among the more equal countries there are some that have high income inequality but robust redistribution, and some that have lower redistribution but greater income inequality. In britain we are being hit with the double whammy of high income inequality and inadequate (and worsening) redistribution. One of these has to go. You cannot have it both ways.

If things continue as they are there certainly will be civil unrest. We will not go back to the Victorian society of extremely wealthy undeserving idlers and what were little more than slaves with no rights without what might be described as a few grumbles.

I would love to see a maximum wage - properly and honestly regulated and enforced - as well.

"some that have lower redistribution but greater income inequality." I meant, of course, greater income equality.

Dh used to get a little over min wage for his weekend job as it was more specialised than others around him. His supervisor got a £1 more than dh.
As min wage rose the others above it didn't and now it's about 20p below the supervisor with dh top up lost very quickly.
I'm all for the min wage rising to eliminate the need for tax credit top ups but others need to balance it out .

Person A:

Earns minimum wage.  Can't afford to support his family.  Requires state subsidies paid for by the taxpayer.  Earns £6.50/ hr

Person B:

Low-to-middle range wage.  Isn't thriving but isn't starving either.  Earns £12-14/ hr

Person C:

Managers, directors, top 10%.  Earns £40 - £100/ hr

---

Person B complains Person A now earns £8 /hr so they can feed their family, and that they are not being paid enough in comparison with Person A, ignoring person C.

This is what they call 'Divide and rule' tactics. If they can distract you by getting you to direct your anger on your fellow workers, then they can distract you and get you to direct your anger and frustration from not being paid enough AWAY from the people who are responsible: the top 1%.

If you're in Group B, don't complain when someone is paid a fair wage. Demand a good wage for yourself!