MSE News: Minimum wage up by 12p per hour from October 15 April 2013 at 2:02PM in Employment, jobseeking & training 23 replies 4.1K views

Former_MSE_Helen

"The national minimum wage will increase for adults, young people and apprentices from 1 October this year..."

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Minimum wage up by 12p per hour from October



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Affynity

"Inflation? Never heard of it!"
This is a very disappointing increase and certainly doesn't resonate with the "making work pay" pledge we keep hearing about.
So with 2.8% inflation, surely they need to be pitching their increases around the 5.6% mark and not less than 2%!

Lovelyjoolz

An increase is always welcome, but £6.31 is still not a living wage.

Even with the new benefits cap a single person can claim £350 per week on benefits yes? Calculated on a standard 37.5 hours week, thats £18,200 per year and yet the minimum wage is only £12,304 per year?

Being on benefits should never be more lucrative than working for a living. Never.

Takeaway_Addict

Affynity wrote: »

"Inflation? Never heard of it!"
This is a very disappointing increase and certainly doesn't resonate with the "making work pay" pledge we keep hearing about.
So with 2.8% inflation, surely they need to be pitching their increases around the 5.6% mark and not less than 2%!

Only if you want to cripple small to medium businessess...

2% is about right and higher than I expected

AP007

Lovelyjoolz wrote: »

An increase is always welcome, but £6.31 is still not a living wage.

Even with the new benefits cap a single person can claim £350 per week on benefits yes? Calculated on a standard 37.5 hours week, thats £18,200 per year and yet the minimum wage is only £12,304 per year?

Being on benefits should never be more lucrative than working for a living. Never.

For some it's not if you only get JSA (£71.70)

AP007

Affynity wrote: »

"Inflation? Never heard of it!"
This is a very disappointing increase and certainly doesn't resonate with the "making work pay" pledge we keep hearing about.
So with 2.8% inflation, surely they need to be pitching their increases around the 5.6% mark and not less than 2%!

Work does pay

Rylynn

AP007 wrote: »

For some it's not if you only get JSA (£71.70)

Yes but is that if you live at home? with parents I mean? and belive me I know that is very low money to live on.

AP007

Rylynn wrote: »

Yes but is that if you live at home? with parents I mean? and belive me I know that is very low money to live on.

It's not just living with parents it anyone who is counted as family so maybe a sister, aunt etc

People still have to pay 'rent' to families.

Rosemary7391

Lovelyjoolz wrote: »

An increase is always welcome, but £6.31 is still not a living wage.

Even with the new benefits cap a single person can claim £350 per week on benefits yes? Calculated on a standard 37.5 hours week, thats £18,200 per year and yet the minimum wage is only £12,304 per year?

Being on benefits should never be more lucrative than working for a living. Never.

Surely a living wage depends on how much you spend on living? As a single person, I could happily maintain my current standard of living on 20 hours a week at minimum wage. A full time job on minimum wage would feel like luxury after being a student.

Affynity

I'm not sure why my original post caused discord with certain people.
Here's the natural flow of below-inflation wage rises:

Disposable income ---> Subsistence only ---> Arrears

While you may see it as crippling to small and medium businesses, you've also got to remember that when you reduce disposable income, you limit peoples' engagement with products and services, which in turn, damages small to medium businesses, many of whom cannot match the discounts of their large rivals.
In fact, as money becomes less available, ALL spending will decrease, so even the biggest corporations will start to see losses.

So while boosting your employees' wages may be a difficult pill to swallow, it must inevitably be swallowed.

sidsnot

What is not mentioned by the op stating jsa pays £70+ a week is that it also includes Housing and council tax benefit , a person working 40 hours a week on minimum wage has to pay rent and council tax, I worked for 4 months on minimum wage last year before finding better work , 40 hours a week slogging it out on nights for just over £30 a week more than if I was on JSA , why people would rather claim benefits for doing nothing isn't really hard to see is it?