MoneySaving Poll: Would you vote for a £14.66 minimum wage?

jaylee3

Other countries have a £14 an hour wage, so why shouldn't we???

That said, it does seem a lot to bump it up to.

Maybe put it up say 50p an hour every year? Up to £7.00 an hour this year, up to £7.50 an hour in 2015, up to £8.00 an hour in 2016, up to £8.50 an hour in 2017 and so on, til it reaches a decent level. The minimum wage now is pants. Nowhere near enough to live on.

Just an idea.

Jimmyc

I don't understand how 69 people can think paying somebody £2.68 is acceptable.
The thought of somebody working a full week for just over £100 makes me feel sick.

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

Jimmyc wrote: »

I don't understand how 69 people can think paying somebody £2.68 is acceptable.
The thought of somebody working a full week for just over £100 makes me feel sick.

Yes that is a very strange feature at one end of the poll results - I'd like to think that 69 people rationalised it along the lines of "Well I appreciate no-one should be forced to work for nothing, but then a free market needs to set its own level and we should remember that some small business startups could do good work if they are allowed to start low so let's pitch it somewhere between where we are now with teenager minimum wage and zero".

Personally if that was their thinking or a variation on it, I would argue that premise is wrong but I would understand it.

However I am very sad to say I think what we see there is more likely to mean we really do have 69 MSE members who treat all labour as "them skivers" working for "us strivers".

quoia

satchef1 wrote: »

I think minimum wage is fine where it is. Giving businesses an incentive to pay the 'Living Wage' where they can afford it is a better idea than simply forcing all businesses (whether they can afford it or not) to pay more.

On the Swiss front, bare in mind how high living costs are over there. It's an expensive country. To simply make the conversion in to pounds and say that the Swiss were proposing a £14.66/hr minimum wage isn't really telling the full story. From the cost of living index, Switzerland is the second most expensive country in Europe. Factor in the difference in living costs and the proposed minimum wage was more equivalent to £10/hr. Still very high, likely why it was voted down.

As per this post, perhaps I can help a little and put this "£14.66" in context somewhat also.

OK, this is over 25 years ago and just like the UK has changed over that time I'm sure the Swiss have done also, but where both countries are now is significantly based on where we were then ....

... and I've heard this corroborated in the meantime.

In the mid 1980's I went out to work in Switzerland just for 1 week.
This was at a "sister" company to the one I worked at as a computer engineer.
It was just a "relief" jaunt whilst a Swiss engineer had to serve his annual few weeks of Army "national service" training.

Not wanting to blow my own trumpet but they really did think I walked on water compared to their own engineers and those that had provided relief cover in the previous months and years.

I was only going for 1 week but after I had resolved several very simple issues that had bugged them literally for years, they "refused" to let me leave, contacted my boss and negotiated that I stayed for at least another 7 days, which I did. They originally asked for another 7 weeks :rotfl:

At the time I earned a good salary of about £10,000 and had a Ford Sierra Estate as a company car, with unlimited (free fuel) personal usage.

Before the 2 weeks had come to an end I was offered a position working from the Geneva or Zurich office, potentially from both of them in a senior position working at such places as NESTLÉ and the World Health Organisation

I was immediately offered a package that started at £20,000 and a PORSCHE CARRERA as my company car.

I WAS seriously tempted I must say.

I did look into it but with a long term partner and a potential wedding on the horizon, friends and family that I would have been very reluctant to leave behind, my Great Dane (no Doggy passports then - would have meant at least 6 months in quarantine) and a few other things, I had I suppose you could say some "serious reservations" about making such a move.

However, and the real point of this post, the "context of £14.66", the thing that put the tin hat on the deal.

At that time in the UK I owned OUTRIGHT the house I lived in.
Paid for in full - a mortgage cleared in under 5 years (a "shared" purchase with help from my mum - my parents lived with me) and then a subsequent second property purchased for my parents to move into soon after.

When I asked about buying a house in Switzerland if I was to take this new wonderful job I had been offered I was GOBSMACKED !!!

I was told that I needed to be earning AT LEAST £100,000 before I could consider making any property purchase. Under 4% of the population owned property, just about everyone rented unless you were "a millionaire"

Given all this I'm actually quite surprised that the Swiss minimum wage isn't already ABOVE £14 anyway.
I know this "new" figure was rejected and I don't know what the current amount stands at, but I'd hazard to guess that it is already twice that of the UK's

However given my knowledge of the land of snow and mountains I'd suggest anyone there on minimum wage are probably worse off than we are.

Dave101t

brilliant idea, then watch in 12 months when everything triples in price......

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

Dave101t wrote: »

brilliant idea, then watch in 12 months when everything triples in price......

Everything? Really? BigMacs maybe - and would that be a bad idea ?

Selective price inflation is not of itself a bad idea. The products that would automatically be selected by an increased minimum wage are those made by companies that exploit low paid workers. That often happens after revaluations. Here we are talking about a revaluation of labour.

Where it might go wrong is where you have a national culture of dissing and distancing low paid labour. The office cleaner gets his or her pay doubled, so the office manager feels the gap has closed too fast and they measure their own success as being worth quadruple the pay of the cleaner. They are wrong and we need to redress that as part of the process.

Forgive me everyone - I just used one of dreaded P words - I usually promise myself I will avoid them if I can !

waqasahmed

to slightly bump this - I earn just over the minimum wage (Placement student) and I'd have voted for the £7.65 figure as the "minimum" and not £14

(Well the next placements get paid £8.33/hour) Any way, this article doesn't detail the living costs in Switzerland. £14.66/hour could well be the "living wage" needed in Switzerland. I don't know. I haven't done a search for it, nor can I be bothered

And tbh, I think I do quite well on minimum wage, or just over, as I'm only supporting myself. No benefits either.

I do live with someone, but tbh, I can live on £5000/year or £7000/year with a car

Obviously I'll pursue higher wages, but £14 seems a little high for say supermarket shelf stackers