Minimum Wage,£7 an hour

[Negative Creep]

Rovinghawk said:

Here's another option for you:

People actually go to school, learn stuff, acquire skills & work hard. They then get a less menial job with higher wage & greater benefit to society. This improves their lot, reduces the benefit bill & makes a wealthier (healthier?) society.

I don't think it'll catch on, but it's a lovely pipe dream.

So who does the menial jobs? As I already mentioned, someone needs to work behind the checkout or phone

[Prawnboy]

Digga said:

Prawnboy said:

lots of people bang on about the government interfering in markets but would they really like the market to be left to find it's natural position, (i've been to china & india, it isn't pretty), it's all a balancing act and the question i guess is what kind of country do you want to live in.

It seems I have news for you; we are all now part of the same global economy. No one has drawn a line in the sand to say any western developed economy is entitled to their current (or recent) share of global wealth. We are all competing and without the right mindset; politics, business, education, employers, employees, we will be living in squalor here too.

indeed we have to fight for our share, i agree that we certainly need the right mindset. Especially so we can compete for many more of the 'top-end' jobs. I don't think we are in a position we need to be fighting china or india for the stty jobs yet,or any time soon.

i won't be living in squalor, just as many in china and india aren't. But people on the bottom end of the wage scale would be, and the question is do you wan't that in your own country?

if it doesn't bother you then fair enough.

[turbobloke]

Negative Creep said:

Rovinghawk said:

Here's another option for you:

People actually go to school, learn stuff, acquire skills & work hard. They then get a less menial job with higher wage & greater benefit to society. This improves their lot, reduces the benefit bill & makes a wealthier (healthier?) society.

I don't think it'll catch on, but it's a lovely pipe dream.

So who does the menial jobs? As I already mentioned, someone needs to work behind the checkout or phone

Menial (unskilled?) jobs are disappearing, either in absolute terms or by being displaced within the global marketplace - surely it would be better to plan for people not doing them as suggested above.

[mph1977]

Negative Creep said:

Rovinghawk said:

Here's another option for you:

People actually go to school, learn stuff, acquire skills & work hard. They then get a less menial job with higher wage & greater benefit to society. This improves their lot, reduces the benefit bill & makes a wealthier (healthier?) society.

I don't think it'll catch on, but it's a lovely pipe dream.

So who does the menial jobs? As I already mentioned, someone needs to work behind the checkout or phone

for many people there will be progression even in these 'menial' jobs , thequestion is when and how far ... a lot of organisatiosn promote from within to team leader and/or trainer / menotr / coach roles even if they don't have multiple levels of operatives , but the supervisor / FLM level may be open to external competition or where the organisation feed their graduates entrants into the business.

if you look in retail there are lots of people doing jobs advertised as 'assistant manager' for a relatively modest amount over their shop assitant colleagues in reality it;s just shift leader / assistant who does opens and closes rather than an actual manager role as the 'store manager' in these often smaller shops is managed by an area Manager who is graded similarity to a the manager of a decent sized shop .

[turbobloke]

Back in 2008 some Australians were discussing cutting their minimum wage and one said:

Cutting minimum wages best reduces the cost of unskilled labour. Australia has the second-highest minimum wage in the OECD, yet our tax and benefits systems mean our lowest-paid workers take home less than in some countries with a lower minimum wage. A 20% reduction in our minimum wage could generate another 100,000 jobs but would still leave our minimum wage comparable with that of countries such as New Zealand and the UK, and tax changes could compensate workers for the cut. No household should pay tax until its earnings exceed the welfare minimum.

[mph1977]

turbobloke said:

Back in 2008 some Australians were discussing cutting their minimum wage and one said:

Cutting minimum wages best reduces the cost of unskilled labour. Australia has the second-highest minimum wage in the OECD, yet our tax and benefits systems mean our lowest-paid workers take home less than in some countries with a lower minimum wage. A 20% reduction in our minimum wage could generate another 100,000 jobs but would still leave our minimum wage comparable with that of countries such as New Zealand and the UK, and tax changes could compensate workers for the cut. No household should pay tax until its earnings exceed the welfare minimum.

hence the lib -dem idea and subsequent coalition policy or raising the personal allowance to 10k - gives ' more ' in terms of impact on the bottom line of thepaylsip to the lower paid than to others . If you were really brave you;d raise the personal allowance to that of someone doing a 35 / 37.5 /40 hour week on the minimum wage

[turbobloke]

mph1977 said:

turbobloke said:

Back in 2008 some Australians were discussing cutting their minimum wage and one said:

Cutting minimum wages best reduces the cost of unskilled labour. Australia has the second-highest minimum wage in the OECD, yet our tax and benefits systems mean our lowest-paid workers take home less than in some countries with a lower minimum wage. A 20% reduction in our minimum wage could generate another 100,000 jobs but would still leave our minimum wage comparable with that of countries such as New Zealand and the UK, and tax changes could compensate workers for the cut. No household should pay tax until its earnings exceed the welfare minimum.

hence the lib -dem idea and subsequent coalition policy or raising the personal allowance to 10k - gives ' more ' in terms of impact on the bottom line of thepaylsip to the lower paid than to others . If you were really brave you;d raise the personal allowance to that of someone doing a 35 / 37.5 /40 hour week on the minimum wage

That was hardly a LibDem idea. Increasing the personal allowance substantially was one of the proposals arising from the Tax Reform Commission set up in 2005 by George Osborne when he was Shadow Chancellor.

[oyster]

Negative Creep said:

So you'd be in favour of businesses increasing profits whilst everyone else picks up the shortfall in taxes. How do you define what a person is worth anyway? It certainly isn't work rate, as in my experience it's the ones at the bottom who are stuck there 9-5 whilst the boss on 4 times as much delegates a few things, has a meeting then heads home early. If you really wanted to pay people £2 an hour that's £62 a week, or less than you get via JSA. The only people that would benefit would be the CEOs and shareholders, whilst the benefits bill would absolutely skyrocket overnight

I most places I've worked it's the opposite.
Work 9-5 lowest paid
8:30 - 5:30 middle managers
8-6 - senior managers
8-7 - execs
7-8 - CEO

[Digga]

Prawnboy said:

indeed we have to fight for our share, i agree that we certainly need the right mindset. Especially so we can compete for many more of the 'top-end' jobs. I don't think we are in a position we need to be fighting china or india for the stty jobs yet,or any time soon.

i won't be living in squalor, just as many in china and india aren't. But people on the bottom end of the wage scale would be, and the question is do you wan't that in your own country?

if it doesn't bother you then fair enough.

I do not like to see human suffering anywhere - to me, whether it is in the UK or elsewhere, the difference is slim.

However, do not forget that under the current regime here, even the poorest still have access to the NHS, state education for their children and many other western comforts. (And, IMHO, long may that continue.) So those who waffle on about poverty do so from a very distorted and unhelpful perspective.

[Dr Jekyll]

Prawnboy said:

not having a job is unemployed, a zero minimum wage, (as was the post i was answering too) is slave labour.

It was my post you were answering and I used the phrase 'the real minimum wage is always zero' to mean that if you are unemployed your wage is zero.

[Prawnboy]

Until we really get the real 50's style future tomorrows world promised me with robots doing all the low skilled work, we can educate every last person in the country to a good standard, (so we should too), and then either import the lower educated or have over qualified cleaners.

The question remains, we will always have picker/packers & shelf stacker's as well as a myriad of other job rolls that keep things humming along, but will only ever attract the most basic of wages.
Shouldn't these people make enough money to live on, and raise a family (in the most basic comfortable fashion), and if the answer is yes, then it's how much of that should that be subsidised by the tax payer against how much should the employer pay?

I totally agree that taxing that low wage and then giving it back in benefits it's a stupid merry go round that could be avoided by raising the tax threshold further, and this would no doubt help more than a minimum wage increase.

But i also don't doubt that as the lower end of the workforce are often a pawn in these and other arguments that it would not be long before we heard people saying, as they pay no tax they don't contribute as we all pay their way....just as people do with students.

i know the world isn't nuanced on PH but even that pair of clown shoes boris Johnson raised the 'voluntary scheme' of living wage rate in london to £8.80 last year, caliming it 'good for London's productivity and growth'

so if there will be menial low paid jobs for the foreseeable future, what percentage should the employer or state cover the basic cost of living, or should neither have to worry about it?

[Rovinghawk]

Prawnboy said:

what percentage should the employer or state cover the basic cost of living, or should neither have to worry about it?

It's not the employer's place to deal with social issues; if the employee has 7 kids then that's still no reason for the employer to have to pay enough to keep them all in what you describe as basic comfort. The employee should bear a certain responsibility for where he is in life.

The state has a certain responsibility to the population, but with responsibility come rights. If the employee wants money to live to a certain standard then I would have no problem with certain restrictions. He might have reasonable expectations of a roof, clothes & balanced diet & I could support this. I do not accept that I should have to help pay for booze, tobacco or Sky TV; they can fund that for themselves.

In short, I would accept that the state, ie the taxpayer, should fund a safety net but it should be at the most very basic level. If people want more than the bare essentials they should be forced ("incentivised") to climb the ladder themselves rather than expect to be helped up by others.

I accept that there would be exceptions such as disabled, etc.

[turbobloke]

Prawnboy said:

Until we really get the real 50's style future tomorrows world promised me with robots doing all the low skilled work, we can educate every last person in the country to a good standard, (so we should too), and then either import the lower educated or have over qualified cleaners.

Tomorrow's world may be one of even more robots than today's world but it will also have self-cleaning public loos / domestic floor surfaces / walls etc, automated units for road and pavement cleaning - just like driverless cars - online shopping to a higher degree than now allowing more automated stocking and restocking of distribution centres, and the rest. Low-skilled jobs are declining or being exported.

Prawnboy said:

The question remains, we will always have picker/packers & shelf stacker's as well as a myriad of other job rolls that keep things humming along, but will only ever attract the most basic of wages.

Not sure about always in many examples of unskilled labour but in ever decreasing numbers either way, tending to a lower number at each stage.

Prawnboy said:

Shouldn't these people make enough money to live on, and raise a family (in the most basic comfortable fashion), and if the answer is yes, then it's how much of that should that be subsidised by the tax payer against how much should the employer pay?

In future 'these people' will be defined more by actual physical and mental capacity to do work, rather than attitude to work which remains in too many cases these days. This is going to happen if only because the alternative has been seen to be unaffordable.

Prawnboy said:

I totally agree that taxing that low wage and then giving it back in benefits it's a stupid merry go round that could be avoided by raising the tax threshold further, and this would no doubt help more than a minimum wage increase.

Agreed.

Prawnboy said:

But i also don't doubt that as the lower end of the workforce are often a pawn in these and other arguments that it would not be long before we heard people saying, as they pay no tax they don't contribute as we all pay their way....just as people do with students.

Students aren't in a job, paid workers are/will be.

Prawnboy said:

i know the world isn't nuanced on PH but even that pair of clown shoes boris Johnson raised the 'voluntary scheme' of living wage rate in london to £8.80 last year, caliming it 'good for London's productivity and growth'

With respect nobody can speak for the entirety of PH in the manner of such generalisations.

Prawnboy said:

so if there will be menial low paid jobs for the foreseeable future..

You set up your own preferred position and now respond to it! There's an equally valid opinion backed by recent trends that there will be far fewer and ever decreasing unskilled jobs in the future. My shilling on the side is with the latter viewpoint.

[markcoznottz]

Will white british workers ever end up in sheds with beds, maybe in a generation?, presumably a lot of people will house share etc, as the cost of living will be horrific. But the absolute refusal of the political class to trim spending to the new world is crass irresponsibility. Decisions that really should have been made in the 50's were fudged, we could have an export led economy now.

[turbobloke]

markcoznottz said:

Decisions that really should have been made in the 50's were fudged, we could have an export led economy now.

The good, and bad, thing about this stage in the process is that through affordability considerations alone, the can can't be kicked down the road for much longer.

Unless you're a eurocrat, when you will continually redefine what a road is, and describe the direction of travel of the can in creative ways while breaking your own rules to ensure your influence and pension survive.

[markcoznottz]

turbobloke said:

markcoznottz said:

Decisions that really should have been made in the 50's were fudged, we could have an export led economy now.

The good, and bad, thing about this stage in the process is that through affordability considerations alone, the can can't be kicked down the road for much longer.

Unless you're a eurocrat, when you will continually redefine what a road is, and describe the direction of travel of the can in creative ways while breaking your own rules to ensure your influence and pension survive.

Only america had a slight lead on us, and japan didnt get going till the 60's, talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Bloody socialists again, more interested in a client state, than our industry which could have easily payed for a welfare system in 15 years of reinvestment after WW2.

[Prawnboy]

Rovinghawk said:

Prawnboy said:

what percentage should the employer or state cover the basic cost of living, or should neither have to worry about it?

It's not the employer's place to deal with social issues; if the employee has 7 kids then that's still no reason for the employer to have to pay enough to keep them all in what you describe as basic comfort. The employee should bear a certain responsibility for where he is in life.

The state has a certain responsibility to the population, but with responsibility come rights. If the employee wants money to live to a certain standard then I would have no problem with certain restrictions. He might have reasonable expectations of a roof, clothes & balanced diet & I could support this. I do not accept that I should have to help pay for booze, tobacco or Sky TV; they can fund that for themselves.

In short, I would accept that the state, ie the taxpayer, should fund a safety net but it should be at the most very basic level. If people want more than the bare essentials they should be forced ("incentivised") to climb the ladder themselves rather than expect to be helped up by others.

I accept that there would be exceptions such as disabled, etc.

i utterly agree, that the individual shouldn't take the piss, and should be striving to do the best they can, those are the ones i'm talking about.

is a shortfall in wages at a full time job something that should be covered by a safety net though?
tesco for example has a profit forcast of £2.4bn this year, i don't know if i feel comfortable that my tax money pays the rent of many of their employees.

[Rovinghawk]

Prawnboy said:

is a shortfall in wages at a full time job something that should be covered by a safety net though?

Could you define shortfall?

Prawnboy said:

tesco for example has a profit forcast of £2.4bn this year, i don't know if i feel comfortable that my tax money pays the rent of many of their employees.

You've picked a terrible example to support your case.

[Prawnboy]

turbobloke said:

There's an equally valid opinion backed by recent trends that there will be far fewer and ever decreasing unskilled jobs in the future. My shilling on the side is with the latter viewpoint.

i do hope your right, it would be a better outcome for sure.

[turbobloke]

Prawnboy said:

turbobloke said:

There's an equally valid opinion backed by recent trends that there will be far fewer and ever decreasing unskilled jobs in the future. My shilling on the side is with the latter viewpoint.

i do hope your right, it would be a better outcome for sure.

The education and training side would need to work better than it does at the moment, with raised awareness of the urgent need to take advantage of all free stages of education, but there's always a chance.