Minimum wage

Mistermeaner

michaels wrote: »

Rather than contributing 10k pa annum to a pension for 5 years there are tax/benefits advantages to contributing 50k in one year (whilst living off savings). MM thinks the former is acceptable but the latter is not.



I am paying all my salary into my pension this year whilst living off savings. Tax gets refunded into my pension but NI does not so earning more means paying more to the govt altogether..

But this isn't the whole story is it Michaels:

You have claimed previously to maximise your salary sacrifice in order to boost your pension so that your 'on paper' income is low enough to ensure you maximise your receipt of child benefit and tax credits. Despite earning well above the thresholds

You have also claimed previously that you were going to drop your working hours temporarily so your Kids can qualify for free school meals then raise your hours again once this is locked in.

You are able to to this because our welfare system says kids should have certain things which means giving low earning parents money.

CLAPTON

Moby wrote: »

Its not a low level of skill.. Respite care and care to provide dignity for those often reaching the end of their lives is important work that should be valued highly. You may find out one day.

I have already found out that looking after a baby is far more important than looking after the old.
However that doesn't mean I think they should receive the highest salary in the world.
As always the left is full of good intentions that damn us all to hell.

michaels

Mistermeaner wrote: »

But this isn't the whole story is it Michaels:

You have claimed previously to maximise your salary sacrifice in order to boost your pension so that your 'on paper' income is low enough to ensure you maximise your receipt of child benefit and tax credits. Despite earning well above the thresholds

You have also claimed previously that you were going to drop your working hours temporarily so your Kids can qualify for free school meals then raise your hours again once this is locked in.

You are able to to this because our welfare system says kids should have certain things which means giving low earning parents money.

Not quite
The salary sacrifice impacts only on NI payable, tax credits entitlement depends on income after pension contributions which would be the same whether it goes into the pension via SalSac or additional pension contributions from salary.
The reason for working less than 24 hours/week would be two fold - firstly the company I work for is short of work and in the past employees including me have accepted reduced hours rather than redundancy. Secondly rather than wanting free school meals (which are only available whilst working short hours), apparently receiving free school meals at any point means that a 'pupil premium' is attached to the child for the next 6 years benefiting the child's school not the child at all.

Moby

mwpt wrote: »

I think most of us get that it is important and hard work. My aunt does stints of care work to supplement her semi-retirement btw, and I hear first hand how draining it is. The advantage is that she can take short contracts and not work full time. You need to explain why people weigh up all the alternatives and then still do the work for the current pay. If we pay more to care workers, will we have a lack of dog walkers?

....because they are desperate for a job...any job possibly or perhaps because it's allowed to be flexible for the reasons you give they can do a bit and then leave and do something else. Problem is for the same reasons it's not valued and not given professional status and ongoing training is completely inadequate. It is regarded as a 'business' and is market driven and quality of service suffers. Any no mark can set himself up in business to run a Care Company. They take on as many contracts as they can and expect carers to visit say 8 people in a day....over a wide geographical area to see people with extremely varied care needs....many of them terminally ill........ and spend 15 mins with them! My sister does the job and she tells me the owner of her company main motivation is to get her to visit as many patients as possible on any given day and then haggle with her how much she is going to receive for petrol costs.

mwpt

Moby wrote: »

....because they are desperate for a job...any job possibly or perhaps because it's allowed to be flexible for the reasons you give they can do a bit and then leave and do something else. Problem is for the same reasons it's not valued and not given professional status and ongoing training is completely inadequate. It is regarded as a 'business' and is market driven and quality of service suffers. Any no mark can set himself up in business to run a Care Company. They take on as many contracts as they can and expect carers to visit say 8 people in a day....over a wide geographical area to see people with extremely varied care needs....many of them terminally ill........ and spend 15 mins with them! My sister does the job and she tells me the owner of her company main motivation is to get her to visit as many patients as possible on any given day and then haggle with her how much she is going to receive for petrol costs.

Ok, I'm not aware of those details, thank you. My aunt does in house care work, as in, she lives with an elderly person for several weeks / months doing the caring. By all accounts she does it well, I hope, and does it voluntarily, as opposed to walking dogs. She seems happy enough with the transaction. I'm not convinced that mandating that she is paid more would improve the quality of her care, because she's already a nice person. I'm sure she'd like the extra money though.

Zoesnan

:I think that these companies that say they cannot afford the living wage should be ashamed that they are not paying a decent wage to their workers in the first place. Even £7.20 per hour is not really a living wage given the cost of housing.:

CLAPTON

Zoesnan wrote: »

:I think that these companies that say they cannot afford the living wage should be ashamed that they are not paying a decent wage to their workers in the first place. Even £7.20 per hour is not really a living wage given the cost of housing.:

best solution is for the state to employ all care workers and make them a full graduate profession with free housing.

POPPYOSCAR

CLAPTON wrote: »

best solution is for the state to employ all care workers and make them a full graduate profession with free housing.

This is one area where I think the state should train and employ all care workers.


The elderly are not looked after adequately and it is only going to get worse.


Not everything in life is about profit.

CLAPTON

POPPYOSCAR wrote: »

This is one area where I think the state should train and employ all care workers.


The elderly are not looked after adequately and it is only going to get worse.


Not everything in life is about profit.

the reason why elderly care is inadequate isn't because the carers don't care, it is because the vile state won't pay enough to allow proper care.

Thrugelmir

Zoesnan wrote: »

:I think that these companies that say they cannot afford the living wage should be ashamed that they are not paying a decent wage to their workers in the first place.

Why should a Company be ashamed to say that something is unaffordable? By the sounds of it you have no comprehension of what it takes to run a business. Does your employer grow magic money trees in order to pay your wages.