'Real living wage' to rise to £9 an hour - MSE News

spadoosh

Comms69 wrote: »

The issue that is often raised is that child care costs end up bringing the actual amount below what they'd get on benefits.

Yeh thats the case for me, but here i am working full time not asking other people to pay for my choices.

Comms69

spadoosh wrote: »

Yeh thats the case for me, but here i am working full time not asking other people to pay for my choices.

No judgement either way; I can understand both sides

rmg1

spadoosh wrote: »

That just seems impossible to me.

Ive just put the figures for a household which is mortgaged 2 adults, 1 child, earning NMW, working full time. The outcome was they where entitled to £20.70 child benefit on entitledto, no UC payments. On the old system they wouldve got an extra £350 a year.

So, how many hours a week does your OH work? I cant help but think the help she needs will be available to her through full time work.

She works full time hours, is not on UC yet (although, apparently, it's heading our way) and child-care costs are around £7000 a year.

She's always been above-board with the tax credits bods and reports any change inn income within a week of getting it.

takman

rmg1 wrote: »

Isn't it a ridiculous state of affairs where you're better off unemployed than working?

In the case of my OH, she's still on low wage (just not as low as she was), still needs the help but is getting less help than she needs.

So what is she doing about it? Is she applying for higher paid jobs? Is she doing a qualification from home to allow her to get a higher paid job?.

I hope she has a plan because you coming on here and complaining about it wont help the situation.

rmg1

takman wrote: »

So what is she doing about it? Is she applying for higher paid jobs? Is she doing a qualification from home to allow her to get a higher paid job?.

I hope she has a plan because you coming on here and complaining about it wont help the situation.

I wasn't complaining as such, I was just mentioning that the rise in "the real living wage" might not be all it's cracked up to be.

But, to answer your question, yes she has a plan.

Andy_L

Gavin83 wrote: »

And here lies my biggest issue with the NMW and the living wage for that matter. Salaries increase, prices increase and ultimately those at the bottom are no better off. It just pushes more people into that bottom bracket.

Doesn't that depend how much of the cost of something is made up of labour?

eg if something costs £100 but labour only accounts for 10% then doubling the wage costs only increase the price by 10%

rmg1

Andy_L wrote: »

Doesn't that depend how much of the cost of something is made up of labour?

eg if something costs £100 but labour only accounts for 10% then doubling the wage costs only increase the price by 10%

Unfortunately, it probably wouldn't work like that in the real world.
If labour charges go up by 1% (or any other percentage) then I can virtually guarantee that the cost to the consumer will go up by more than that.

spadoosh

rmg1 wrote: »

She works full time hours, is not on UC yet (although, apparently, it's heading our way) and child-care costs are around £7000 a year.

She's always been above-board with the tax credits bods and reports any change inn income within a week of getting it.

So you dont work/full time or are also on a low income?

rmg1

spadoosh wrote: »

So you dont work/full time or are also on a low income?

I work full time and I'm not low income.
We don't, however, live together and my earnings aren't taken into consideration.

Again, the Tax Office know about this.

RyanEzio

I really don't think this wage increase is very good at all.


Surely having a 30 hour a week contract at £6 an hour, rather than a zero hour contract at £9 an hour would be much more beneficial to the employee AND the company, especially a small business.