[The Economy] 6.2% living wage increase

SpiderLegs

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

LOL again.

It's pretty clear you don't have the foggiest idea about business and taxation...

Do you think VAT is a business expense?

Your false claim was that any company paying millions in tax can afford wage rises.

You were the one making the claim that your 2m tax bill meant you couldn’t.

I've shown you an example of a large UK company with 43% of turnover going directly to government in various forms of taxation, regardless of profitability, and that makes only 4% profit.

No you haven’t. VAT is not included in a company’s turnover. Come on Hamish.

Another poster has given the example of 2% net profits.

Ooh how exciting. What relevance does that have at all?
The key element in the effect of wage increases are the level of labour intensity in that company, not the underlying NP.
That’s why your oh no look at all this tax I pay nonsense is just totally pointless.

When such high proportions of turnover go to government directly in taxation, and so many companies are only making low single digit profits, there's simply no room left to raise wages without raising prices.

You found one company that specifically has a high tax burden. Then You misrepresented the figures and used it across the whole economy. Well done.
All those industries that have to face the terrible burden of alcohol duty. Oh the tragedy.

Perhaps you should stop with the petty insults and actually try to learn a bit about topics before debating them....:money:

Yes yes we all know that business owners love to play the poor card whenever their cost base increases.
The only problem, as has been pointed out ; is that the same moaning was in place when the MW came in and the effect was somewhat less than the predicted meltdown.
I’m sure this time will be different though.

GreatApe

Thrugelmir wrote: »

I'm expecting an interesting first budget. With some major initiatives to set the tone for the future. If you don't try you'll never succeed. Doing nothing is not an option for the new administration.

Boris should become Boris the builder
He has a majority to push big projects forward

Get Boris island built the new UK hub airport
That is a massive project and Heathrow can be rebuilt as homes and offices so two huge projects

Increase the offshore wind target from 30GW by 2030 to 50GW by 2035 that's an additional £50 billion or so invested

Increase house building to 400,000 units a year by forcing every council in the country to approve a minimum of 1.5% of their housing stock as new build permissions. So if the local council has 100,000 homes already they have to approve 1,500 per year or central government takes over for five years

Build perhaps as much as 200 miles of underground road tunnels in London to ease surface road congestion. Things like M1J1 to A20 which is a 27 mile 70 mins trip which would become a 10 mile 8 mins trip. That's 80% reduction in fuel burn and 80% reduction in car pollution and 27 mile less surface miles and less accidents (motorway miles are much safer than urban) and less mileage added to the car so less depreciation and wear and tear

Can make it pay per use I'd happily pay a fiver to avoid nearly a fiver of fuel burn and save an hour on trips. I think this would be a great idea. It would really change and improve London with Significantly less traffic less pollution less accidents. The very same tunnels can and would be used by buses too so public transport would be improved as well.

GreatApe

Arklight wrote: »

Excellent, I'm going to open a bank tomorrow. Oh, wait...

Plenty of new banks have appeared over the last decade
I use Metrobank now, it didn't exist a decade ago
It charges about 40% less for business banking fees
And is open more than 360 days a year

New payment systems have also appeared

Just because Arklight isn't able or willing to open a company is that must mean no one is able to willing :rotfl:

Do you even ask yourself why your team lost?
3 million companies in the UK which means at least 6 million company owners if you count husband and wife. About 5 million self employed. About 5 million employed by the state.

The old idea of big factories and one boss abusing the workers is no more, if it ever existed


When you demonize companies you demonize 3 million UK company owners and their families
When you try to paint the world as employer Vs employees who do the self employed vote for when you say and paint doing things for yourself as negative?

You lost big time
Try to figure out why
Or expect another defeat come 2025

GreatApe

Arklight wrote: »

I think you're being somewhat wilfully disingenuous here Hamish. A living wage is considered to be about £10 an hour. Assuming you manage to get a proper permanent job doing this where you're paid for 52 weeks of the year, that's a princely £19k.

In fact, according to the ONS, about 40% of workers earn less than this. I don't think all of them are likely to be students and retired people passing the time.

Never mind £8.65. Can you get by on £19k a year? In reality most of these workers will be claiming at least some in work benefits due to their low wages, so clearly UK plc is finding extra money from somewhere.

Since you mentioned Greggs, maybe people would have to pay a bit more for their sausage rolls. Perhaps Greggs night redistribute it's own salaries a bit. Considering the CEO of Greggs alone earned £2m last year, or to put it another way, earns 130 times per hour more than the people in his stores, maybe he and the board of directors could take a bit of a cut.

I personally don't think the state should subsidise low wages.

I'm okay with the minimum wage going to £10 and being indexed from then on

However this won't improve things for the majority
It will improve things for the 10% or so of the workforce that get paid £10ph or less

The bulk of UK workers get paid significantly more

And you willfully ignore things like inheritances and gifts
One of my friends is a nurse earns I assume not much at all
Her father just bought her a flat last year cash no mortgage no loan just a gift
She was a raving loony lefty. I suspect over the next few years she will be tempered by her new found wealth

Lucky for her you will cry
But the majority in the UK will get significant wealth handed down to them
£200 billion a year flows from old to younger and this is very very wide spread
And spreads out moreso still via marriage and divorce

Overall life on the UK is good of you are of sound mind and body
If you aren't of sound mind and have dysfunctional addictions well your fooled under any system in that case

GreatApe

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

LOL again.

It's pretty clear you don't have the foggiest idea about business and taxation...

Your false claim was that any company paying millions in tax can afford wage rises.

I've shown you an example of a large UK company with 43% of turnover going directly to government in various forms of taxation, regardless of profitability, and that makes only 4% profit.

Another poster has given the example of 2% net profits.

When such high proportions of turnover go to government directly in taxation, and so many companies are only making low single digit profits, there's simply no room left to raise wages without raising prices.

Perhaps you should stop with the petty insults and actually try to learn a bit about topics before debating them....:money:

You are correct prices will rise

However this is okay it's effectively like a tax on those not on minimum wage to give a tax cut to those who are on or near min wage

It's a transfer of wealth from all those not at the bottom to those at the bottom

If you assume in real terms it's 50p and they do an average 1500h a year work and there are 2 million of them that's roughly a £1.5 billion transfer with the burden evenly spread and the benefit going to the 2 million or so low paid workers. Some of this £1.5 billion will also be recovered in lower benefit payments

I think this is okay and it's not going to be a huge distortion

I'd actually continue and have a 4% real term pay rise for the min wage for the next 5 years
Such that the minimum wage will be £10.20 in today's money then keep it at that indexed to CPI

Someone working 2,500h a week would be on £25,000 in today's money which is perfectly reasonable amount to live on. A couple on Mon wage working 50h a week each would have £50,000 and would have take home pay around the £40,000 mark. That's pretty good

People will still of course complain at that point because who ever says I have too much?


Again using the assumption of 2 million such workers 1,500h/yr and effectively £1.50 increase you get £4.5 billion increase in business costs. That might drive inflation up about 0.25% over the next 4 years that's acceptable.

GreatApe

Supermarket sales are about £180,000 per worker

If you want to pay workers £1,800 more per year that means Tesco needs to increase prices by 1%

There is no magic money tree. The workers get £1,800 more but the public pay £1,800 more for their supermarket shopping. If a family spends £10,000 on supermarket shopping per year they will be paying £100 more per year. So 18 families pay £100 more per year for one staff to get a £1,800 pay rise

It's of course a benefit for the staff member but a harm to the other 18 families
Maybe you can argue the 18 non min wage families can afford it
I would agree with that assessment

The marginal families who can't really afford the £100 bigger shopping bill would probably buy cheaper brands instead so they will survive

sevenhills

GreatApe wrote: »

It's of course a benefit for the staff member but a harm to the other 18 families
Maybe you can argue the 18 non min wage families can afford it
I would agree with that assessment

There is no reason to believe that once the rise has a year or so to settle in, other workers will get a rise and differentials will go back to normal.

Arklight

GreatApe wrote: »

Plenty of new banks have appeared over the last decade
I use Metrobank now, it didn't exist a decade ago
It charges about 40% less for business banking fees
And is open more than 360 days a year

New payment systems have also appeared

Just because Arklight isn't able or willing to open a company is that must mean no one is able to willing :rotfl:

Do you even ask yourself why your team lost?
3 million companies in the UK which means at least 6 million company owners if you count husband and wife. About 5 million self employed. About 5 million employed by the state.

The old idea of big factories and one boss abusing the workers is no more, if it ever existed


When you demonize companies you demonize 3 million UK company owners and their families
When you try to paint the world as employer Vs employees who do the self employed vote for when you say and paint doing things for yourself as negative?

You lost big time
Try to figure out why
Or expect another defeat come 2025

Cool story bro

Arklight

GreatApe wrote: »

One of my friends is a nurse earns I assume not much at all.

She was a raving loony lefty. I

I'm sure your friendship is an enormous comfort and boon to her.

Cakeguts

The problem I see with this is that it is a National Minimum Wage and doesn't take into account the difference in the cost of living in different parts of the country. That in turn doesn't take into account the cost of producing items in different parts of the country. It doesn't help the poorer areas with higher unemployment to be competitive with higher cost areas if employers have to pay the same wages regardless of the top price that people in an area can afford to pay.