why do people moan about minimum wage

yorkshirekev

shortchanged wrote: »

People should thank their lucky stars that a labour government brought in a minimum wage, as a tory goverment in the past wouldn't have introduced one and there would still be some people earning £3 an hour in this day and age!

It is something that Labour should have done more of, make it more worthwhile for people to work. Legislation that they can be justifiably pleased about. It is just sad how far they lost their way (e.g 10p starting rate abolition)

Mr_Mumble

shortchanged wrote: »

People should thank their lucky stars that a labour government brought in a minimum wage, as a tory goverment in the past wouldn't have introduced one and there would still be some people earning £3 an hour in this day and age!

Yep, we're so lucky that these people are unemployed instead! £3 full-time is double JSA, most people in the world would love to be earning that pay rate.

Abolish the minimum wage and you'd no longer have the ludicrous situation where interns, trainees, apprentices and other folk desperate for valuable work experience have to decide between no pay and no job skills.

The minimum wage is an evil that destroys jobs, breaks the human right of freedom of contract, subsidises the employed at the expense of the unemployed and tells the unskilled or disabled that do not have an economic worth of £5.93ph that they're worthless and should feed at the teat of politicians and their handouts.

Fiddlestick

Mr_Mumble wrote: »

Yep, we're so lucky that these people are unemployed instead! £3 full-time is double JSA, most people in the world would love to be earning that pay rate.

I'm sure "most people in the world" WOULD love to earn £3 per hour, but you forget that the cost of living is far lower for "most people in the world".

It's all relative.

mudshark

On a slight tangent...my Mum worked for CAB but left as she felt most people who came in weren't really in need of help - or at least she wanted to work somewhere where she felt she was helping people more in need. Anyway, the last straw was someone who came in who had a job and was on £12k pa - this was in the late 90s - this person wanted to know what benefits she would get if she resigned as she felt this wasn't enough for a graduate.

lostinrates

mudshark wrote: »

On a slight tangent...my Mum worked for CAB but left as she felt most people who came in weren't really in need of help - or at least she wanted to work somewhere where she felt she was helping people more in need. Anyway, the last straw was someone who came in who had a job and was on £12k pa - this was in the late 90s - this person wanted to know what benefits she would get if she resigned as she felt this wasn't enough for a graduate.

As a matter of interest, roughly, which part of the country was this in?

mudshark

It was in Cheshire.

shortchanged_2

Mr_Mumble wrote: »

The minimum wage is an evil that destroys jobs, breaks the human right of freedom of contract, subsidises the employed at the expense of the unemployed and tells the unskilled or disabled that do not have an economic worth of £5.93ph that they're worthless and should feed at the teat of politicians and their handouts.

I seem to remember hearing that argument from business leaders when the minimum wage was introduced and it certainly didn't have the drastic effect they made out it would back then.

Everyone who works should be entitled to a decent wage even though someone who works full time on £5.93 only earns £237 a week pre tax. So to say people working full time should be earning less than that is ridiculous.

Whatever happened to rewarding work. Increase wages and maybe there will be more incentive to work.

stringsmk2

Running_Horse wrote: »

I started on 0.65p an hour, then £1 an hour, then £2, then £3, and so on. That was how semi-skilled young people got on back then. Threaten to resign once your skill level had reached a certain point.

It was really depressing in the 80s looking for jobs and they were all £2 an hour or less.

Although like America there is now a stigma attached, I think of the minimum wage as one of the great achievements of New Labour.

Not really, it just pushes the cost of everything up.

Running_Horse

stringsmk2 wrote: »

Not really, it just pushes the cost of everything up.

It reduces the welfare bill and therefore your tax bill. It used to be you would take a £2 an hour job as a forklift driver and then top up your wages with benefits. In effect good employers were subsidising bad ones. They paid twice; once with decent wages, and again with taxes to subsidise their competitors.

olly300

stringsmk2 wrote: »

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Not really, it just pushes the cost of everything up.

So you think it's a good thing that security guards and carers got £2 an hour and had to work 60 hour plus weeks so they could support their families? With the government topping up their wages so the family could survive?

There are still working poor out there with the minimum wage but least they aren't as desperate as they would be.