The Minimum wage

StevieJ

CLAPTON wrote: »

there are people who would be very pleased to find a job below the minimum wage if that was allowed

Would that be Piotr, Gabriela or Roman by any chance

jamesmorgan

Kennyboy66 wrote: »

The difficulty with you textbook answer is that it is fairly difficult to find any empirical evidence that the minimum wage has increased employment amongst adults in the UK over the last 12 years.

There are good arguments about youth rates (say up to 21 years) and the fact that its a single rate regardless of region but in general you are just repeating GSCE theoretical supply and demand economics and ignoring a multitude of other factors.

I agree it is a complex area and as such very difficult to produce evidence of a direct link between minimum wages and unemployment rates. I suspect part of the reason for this is that the minimum wage is set at such a level that for the majority of adult workers it has little/no impact.

However, as you enter a recession, wages should fall. In this scenario the minimum wage may start to have a real effect on employability of workers. The low pay commission has recently published a report on this (http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm83/8302/8302.pdf). Warning - this is a large document. As you would expect, its findings were not clear cut but do suggest that the minimum wage has had an adverse impact on young workers and part-time female workers. Other low paid workers do not seem to have been effected. It also suggests that business start-ups in geographic areas with lower pay have been adversely impacted (possible arguments for regional NMW)

coastline

What about a maximum wage...and back to the boardroom of the FT100 companies it goes...;)
Thirty years ago the heads in the boardroom were on around 12 times average workers salary...today they are on 40 times...especially our old favourites in the bank...
And the answer from them is...if you want the best you've got to pay for it....wonder if they are still saying that when they are on 60 times..

suburbanwifey

Minimum wage should increase to around £12 an hour *minimum* as that would be considered by me a minimum wage that is liveable on in today's Britain, with the cost of living as it is. This would also remove the need for tax payers to top up their currently ridiculously low minimum wage with tax credits and housing benefits. Jobs could be lost in all those sectors that keep all these benefits getting paid out, thus saving more public money. Employers should not be paying wages that are not liveable on. Its wrong. The thing wrong with the minimum wage is its far too low.

ILW

suburbanwifey wrote: »

Minimum wage should increase to around £12 an hour *minimum* as that would be considered by me a minimum wage that is liveable on in today's Britain, with the cost of living as it is. This would also remove the need for tax payers to top up their currently ridiculously low minimum wage with tax credits and housing benefits. Jobs could be lost in all those sectors that keep all these benefits getting paid out, thus saving more public money. Employers should not be paying wages that are not liveable on. Its wrong. The thing wrong with the minimum wage is its far too low.

How much would you be prepared to see your taxes rise to fund it?Many jobs in or around minimum wage are in the care sector which is indirectly paid for by the public purse.

suburbanwifey

ILW wrote: »

How much would you be prepared to see your taxes rise to fund it?Many jobs in or around minimum wage are in the care sector which is indirectly paid for by the public purse.

I think we pay enough in taxes already being 40% tax payers! Maybe if the owners of care homes paid living wages, not minimum wages insults, the likes of what I saw on a documentary on TV a few days ago wouldn't be occurring. Care workers have a thankless, hard job from what I know and they are paid so badly most of those employed in the care industry do not show the care and concern for the residents that they should, they consider themselves so badly paid and they are in my opinion.

I think if the public purse stopped paying for unnecessary wars, giving aid to other countries and other such wastes of public money, then that problem wouldn't occur would it.

The care sector is where the national minimum wage is the biggest scandal. People pay hundreds per week to have their loved one's be cared for in these places yet they employ staff on minimum wages who are not fit to take care of them. Better staff won't work for that money doing that job. Pay monkey wages, you get monkey staff.

If employers can't afford to pay a decent living wage to staff, then maybe they shouldn't be in business. National Minimum wage should be increased.

Graham_Devon

If the NMW was raised to £12 an hour, the taxpayer would have to cough up more. Theres no way about it.

So many public sector workers are on under £12 an hour, you could look at nearly doubling the public sector workers bill....not to mention pension contributions.

Every item in the shops would go up in price.

Theres one way to cripple the country completely, and thats it. Housing benefit etc is only where it is due to high property prices and lack of regulation.

ukcarper

Graham_Devon wrote: »

If the NMW was raised to £12 an hour, the taxpayer would have to cough up more. Theres no way about it.

So many public sector workers are on under £12 an hour, you could look at nearly doubling the public sector workers bill....not to mention pension contributions.

Every item in the shops would go up in price.

Theres one way to cripple the country completely, and thats it. Housing benefit etc is only where it is due to high property prices and lack of regulation.

How much would they save in LHA, tax credit etc not to mention the additional tax.

vulcan1964

Lets go the whole hog then...bring back child labour, abolish all employment laws of H&S and working hours and bring back the workhouses. All in the name of profit.

It is very easy to say remove the minimum wage if you are not on it and you are not likely to be affected by it

StevieJ

ILW wrote: »

How much would you be prepared to see your taxes rise to fund it?Many jobs in or around minimum wage are in the care sector which is indirectly paid for by the public purse.

Why is that? those wages are probably topped up with benefits anyway.