The Minimum wage

jamesmorgan

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Easily.

Greedy BTL landlords would jack up the rents.

I think there is a slightly more fundamental issue here of fixed supply. In the UK, the supply of housing is relatively fixed - it is not easy to get planning permission to build a house on a new plot of land. The number of households is roughly equal to the number of houses available. In this scenario, costs of the product are bid up to the point where a fixed percentage of net income is spent on the product according to its utility value. For housing this appears to be around 33% of net income (so typically 33% of net income will be spent on either the monthly mortgage or the rent).

Household income has risen dramatically in real terms since the war (due to to a mix of both couples working and improved productivity), however, the standard of living has not improved at the same pace. The reason for this is that a lot of the increased income has simply pushed up house prices.

Mrs_Arcanum

I blame the abolition of the wages council. At least that looked at types of jobs and set the rate accordingly.

jamesmorgan

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Sorry but the idea that there is an unlimited amount of work to do is fundamentally a load of old carp- as it assumes that there is infinite demand and an infinite amount of money circulating.

Tescos wouldn't suddenly employ 300,000 more people even if those people were willing to work for free, as there is a limited amount of food that people will buy.

Saying there is an unlimited amount of potential work to be done is not the same as saying there is an unlimited amount of work to be done at Tesco's. In the UK, 80% of the workforce used to be employed in agriculture. Today it is around 2%. The people no longer employed in agriculture have found jobs that didn't exist a few hundred years ago. The jobs came about because there are now people available to do them. It is true for certain products such as food, there will be a limited demand, but most of these new jobs are in the service sector where demand is less constrained.

As I said before, the number of jobs is constrained primarily by the number of people willing to undertake the work at a profitable rate. We are a long, long way from running out of potential jobs.

CLAPTON

jamesmorgan wrote: »

Household income has risen dramatically in real terms since the war (due to to a mix of both couples working and improved productivity), however, the standard of living has not improved at the same pace. The reason for this is that a lot of the increased income has simply pushed up house prices.

presumably some-one has benefited form the increase in house prices and has had their standard of living increased; so it would seem that the standard of living must by definition have increased at the same rate as household incomes

System

crash123 wrote: »

minimum wage for that area (Wyoming) .

That is the nub of our problem - we have the same minimum wage for all areas.

jamesmorgan

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.

I think your a confusing 2 separate issues. Typically a wage for a worker will be pushed up by supply and demand to the highest possible level an employer can afford (and still make a profit). If they don't pay that wage, someone else will and the worker moves. If you push up the NMW to a level beyond this, the employer has 2 choices - either they don't employ the worker, or they push up prices to reflect their increased costs. In the latter scenario, inflation happens and the £12/hr you are paying the worker may not be any better than £6/hr in real money.

Tax credits are all about wealth re-distribution. It is taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor. At best it only has a marginal impact on wage levels. If an employer pays you a lower wage because you are getting tax credits, they still risk losing you to a rival who can still afford to pay you more.

jamesmorgan

CLAPTON wrote: »

presumably some-one has benefited form the increase in house prices and has had their standard of living increased; so it would seem that the standard of living must by definition have increased at the same rate as household incomes

It depends on what you mean by benefit. In 1940 the average house price was £500. Today it is around £250,000. If I own my house, on paper I am £249,500 better off, but I still need a house to live in and I still have just one house. Having a higher figure on a balance sheet doesn't provide benefit - it is the assets that you can purchase with this that provide benefit. In both cases the benefit is the same.

Butterfly_Brain

So people who work long hours in poorly paid thankless jobs that a lot of people on this board would deem beneath them to do, are the ones who are expected to have a low wage. They still have extortionate bills to pay and put food on the table and yes some even have cars to get them to said jobs that are 15 miles away.

£6.08 - the main rate for workers aged 21 and over
£4.98 - the 18-20 rate
£3.68 - the 16-17 rate for workers above school leaving age- under 18
£2.60 - the apprentice rate, for apprentices under 19 or 19 or over and in the first year of their apprenticeship

Why is it always the poorest who are squeezed so that the 1% of society can get richer on their backs?
Why do you think that big businesses welcome immigration? it is because they know that the immigrants will work for less and not have the rights of workers here that we have fought for years to have.
If you want to cut the minimum wage then it is a sad indictment of the society that we now live in.
I dare any of you to live on minimum wage (approx £250 pw) it is not easy when the general cost of living is going up at an alarming rate especially, gas, electric, water, food and now mortgages and rents.
Oh yes we have a mortgage and live on minimum wage, but we bought our house 18 years ago and it is a lot cheaper than renting. My DH was once a high earner but he was a victim of cuts and was made redundant, so instead of going on the laughable JSA he got a low paid job and is still there, because there are very few jobs in our area.
Cut minimum wage to £2 an hour which is what the boss of Whitbread (who own Premier inn and Costa where most of the staff are on minimum wage by the way) has stated! Alright but everyone should take the same 75% cut in their wages and have a taste of what they are expecting the poorest in society to do.
As for top up benefits we wouldn't have to have them if we could live on minimum wage Catch 22
Be careful because anyone can find themselves out of work and one day you might well be singing from a different hymn sheet.

Mrs_Arcanum

CLAPTON wrote: »

presumably some-one has benefited form the increase in house prices and has had their standard of living increased; so it would seem that the standard of living must by definition have increased at the same rate as household incomes

As an example. My father was a Land Drainage Officer in the 50's/60's and covered the whole county, wage at the time (around 1956/7) was £12/10s pw (£650 pa + mileage). A similar job today deals with a single district (about 20-25% of the area) and pays around £30,000 p/a.

In the early 70's a shop worker earned around £7.50 pw so the £12.50 pw in the late 50s was a good salary.

In the early 60's my father paid £4,000 cash for a large detached house which sold 40 years later for £400,000 with less land than the original purchase. He did have additional family money not related to his earnings.

House prices have gone up faster than wages due to the higher borrowing vs income. Simple.

ILW

suburbanwifey wrote: »

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.

You obviously know nothing about the finances of your bog standard care home. Many barely break even.