Living wage

macaque_2

A lot companies in the UK are paying less than a living wage and relying on the tax payer to make up the difference. The solution is to double the minimum wage and cut benefits.

Iain Duncan Smith says it is his mission to make work pay. He wants to end ‘in-work poverty' So it must have been a shock to find a letter left on his desk from 64 of the people who clean his office, complaining that they cannot live on the wages they are paid by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
http://www.channel4.com/news/cleaners-demand-living-wage-from-government-minister

Graham_Devon

LOL excellent.

Love the response. "It will cost a million pounds to raise the wage".

Yes, so either stop suggesting it should be raised when it's not feasable, or make it feasable! Until then, it's all soundbites.

McKneff

Dont be daft, every commodity would rise accordinlgly so we would all endup in the same situation.

macaque_2

McKneff wrote: »

Dont be daft, every commodity would rise accordinlgly so we would all endup in the same situation.

People need a living income irrespective of whether the money comes from the employer or the government.

In the 80's there were coal mines that spent more to get coal out of the ground than they could sell it for. Leaving aside the politics, the concensus was that if coal companies could not make a profit, it was not for the tax payer to subsidise the industry. Although Labour made a lot of political mileage, they never reopened the loss making pits. If is not acceptable for the state to subsidise the coal industry, why is it acceptable to subsidise low paid service industries.

If I was getting up at 4:00 am to clean offices for living (and not just a gap filler), I would expect more than £6.06 an hour.

grizzly1911

Agree that we should have a living wage it doesn't make sense to simply top up wages with benefit.

But making the NHS pay employer NI doesn't make sense either.

Come to think of it their are a number of things that don't make sense like filling in tax returns to declare tax of say £2/300 which will cost more to process and collect. Not charging VAT on fuel for passenger flights but charging it Coaches. Charging VAT on Ebooks and not real books. Child Benefit reduction for single high earners but not dual earners.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

macaque wrote: »

A lot companies in the UK are paying less than a living wage and relying on the tax payer to make up the difference.

Whether the additional pay/benefits for employees comes from consumers in the form of tax, or in the form of higher prices for goods and services, doesn't really matter.

Ultimately the consumer pays either way.

If businesses must pay higher wages, they must charge higher prices for goods and services to consumers.

If that is to be fair to the consumer/taxpayer, they should then pay less tax.

The solution is to double the minimum wage and cut benefits.

Which would only be fair and cost neutral to the taxpayer if they, the consumers, also paid lower taxes.

paulmapp8306

The government set minimum wage. the government set benefit levels which are supposed to give a basic standard of living.

Now - if someone works for minimum wage - but is still entitled to benefits to bring them up to that standard then minimum wage isnt high enough. Thats pretty easy to grasp.

Levels should be set so that if you work full time for mimimun wage, then you dont need to claim benefits - including housing.

I dont see prices rising THAT much. OK shops will have to pay staff a little more - so that might push things up a little - but not stupid amounts. Most of the transport cost for goods is fuel - the drivers already earn a lot in general. A lot of goods come from outside the UK, so their costs wont rise.

guitarman001

Would be gutted if min wage rose and mine didn't.. I work for a living. My sister is a single mum and pays rock-bottom (£200 pcm) rent on a council flat, gets lots of benefits (enough to take 2 sriving lessons a week) and all the rest. I'm stuck at home. Still toying with the idea of moving to Germany. I might be subsidising foreigners at that point, but at least it'll be a change from subsidising entitled British.

IronWolf

The minimum wage is not designed to be a living wage.

HappyMJ

paulmapp8306 wrote: »

The government set minimum wage. the government set benefit levels which are supposed to give a basic standard of living.

Now - if someone works for minimum wage - but is still entitled to benefits to bring them up to that standard then minimum wage isnt high enough. Thats pretty easy to grasp.

Levels should be set so that if you work full time for mimimun wage, then you dont need to claim benefits - including housing.

I dont see prices rising THAT much. OK shops will have to pay staff a little more - so that might push things up a little - but not stupid amounts. Most of the transport cost for goods is fuel - the drivers already earn a lot in general. A lot of goods come from outside the UK, so their costs wont rise.

Why work at all when the government will top everyone up to the same level no matter how many or how few hours you do?

Personally, benefits should be reduced to give a very basic lifestyle. Then removed at a fair and reasonable rate such as 50% to make it actually worth working. Benefits are currently quite high and reduced pound for pound making working not worth even doing just a few hours trapping many in poverty. If more people just work a few hours just one day a week will do to earn £50 a week more to have a reasonable lifestyle that would reduce the benefits payable to them by let's say 50% - £25. Then once they have this one day a week job they can see the benefit of an extra £25 in their pocket each week and will look to increase their hours until they have an amount of money in their pocket that they are happy with. At the moment it's all or nothing.

ruggedtoast

Letting companies pay poverty wages and then having the taxpayer top them up is just another inisidious example of neo-liberal market distortion. Yet more corporate welfare.

London is a case in point, people on minimum wages are working for some of the richest corporations in the world. Utterly priced out of the city they live in, the taxpayer hands them benefits that enable them to live in places those on an average wage can't afford.

The mega rich, the banks and the corporations, who are past masters at avoiding paying tax at all, get massively subsidised employees and contribute disproportionately little to the subsidy.

I would like to see the minimum wage and benefits abandoned completely in London. If HSBC want people to clean their offices and take their phone calls they would then have to pay someone enough to actually be able to live near enough to them to do so.