Trade union and socialist coalition party

Trade union and socialist coalition party

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Discussion

Vaud

50,285 posts

154 months

Friday 17th April 2015
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McWigglebum4th said:
We should really have a scheme to let people who don't like the UK to leave the UK

Give them £50K and free flight to anywhere in the world in exchange for their passport and a promise to never return

Then these folk can move to somewhere free like north korea where there is no private enterprise
Make it 100k and I'll take it providing you guarantee the country and that I will have citizenship there. Plus my right to visit the UK as a non-EU citizen, everything paid for by me when I return.

JensenA

5,671 posts

229 months

Friday 17th April 2015
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thinkofaname said:
fblm said:
I'm not what one would normally call socialist but that hardly seems unreasonable to me
It is £20K a year. Low-level staff are simply not that productive. It is miles above their actual value to an employer. Hence, far fewer low-level jobs if such a crazy policy were implemented.
It's these 'low level' staff (you snobby tt) that keep the country going, look after people in care homes, recycle your rubbish, clean the streets, make the sandwiches that you buy, stock the shelves in he supermarkets, keep the hospitals clean (and your your nice air conditioned offices).
At the moment all these jobs are subsidised by the tax payer, why shouldn't the Employer pay the wage?

Dr Jekyll

23,820 posts

260 months

Friday 17th April 2015
quotequote all
JensenA said:
It's these 'low level' staff (you snobby tt) that keep the country going, look after people in care homes, recycle your rubbish, clean the streets, make the sandwiches that you buy, stock the shelves in he supermarkets, keep the hospitals clean (and your your nice air conditioned offices).
At the moment all these jobs are subsidised by the tax payer, why shouldn't the Employer pay the wage?
If someone through no fault of their own only provides £15K a year of value to an employer, that employer can either pay >= £15K, or not employ them at all. Why on earth pay £20K to employ someone if you're making a loss by doing so?

Allow the employer to pay £14,999, and they make a profit, we get our sandwiches and the employee has a job and can build experience so that in a few years time they are worth £25K, or £75K.

davepoth

29,395 posts

198 months

Friday 17th April 2015
quotequote all
JensenA said:
It's these 'low level' staff (you snobby tt) that keep the country going, look after people in care homes, recycle your rubbish, clean the streets, make the sandwiches that you buy, stock the shelves in he supermarkets, keep the hospitals clean (and your your nice air conditioned offices).
At the moment all these jobs are subsidised by the tax payer, why shouldn't the Employer pay the wage?
I agree. I know a lot of people who are on less than £20k, and they are degree qualified and doing quite technical work. The job market really is a little bit broken at the bottom at the moment and I can't help but wonder if tax credits have got something to do with it. Upping the minimum wage so that a "standard" family with two full time minimum wage earners doesn't need topping up seems to be quite a sane idea really - there's little point in having a minimum wage if it's effectively below the minimum.

Pillskii

128 posts

151 months

Friday 17th April 2015
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Don't forget that everyone currently on £10 per hour will want a proportionate increase too. Madness.

The point re working tax credits, I thought this was for very low total earnings I.e single mum working 10 hours a week min wage. I was under the impression even working full time at the minimum wage you'd be earning too much?

thinkofaname

280 posts

132 months

Friday 17th April 2015
quotequote all
JensenA said:
It's these 'low level' staff (you snobby tt) that keep the country going, look after people in care homes, recycle your rubbish, clean the streets, make the sandwiches that you buy, stock the shelves in he supermarkets, keep the hospitals clean (and your your nice air conditioned offices).
At the moment all these jobs are subsidised by the tax payer, why shouldn't the Employer pay the wage?
biggrin I tried "junior", "lower paid", and various other things, but it felt like somebody somewhere would be offended however I phrased it. Seems that I still chose the wrong term. But it is not meant as a pejorative term. It is an economic fact that some workers do not produce as much societal benefit as others. That is not a criticism of those people. It is a fact of life.
We already have income redistribution via the income tax system, and other taxes. Why do we need another complication? If you want greater redistribution of income, fine. Simply advocate for higher progressive income tax rates. No need to distort the labour market with well-intentioned but destructive regulations.

Edited by thinkofaname on Friday 17th April 21:16

anonymous-user

53 months

Friday 17th April 2015
quotequote all
thinkofaname said:
fblm said:
Lets have companies pay nothing then and have the tax payer top them up even more. Think how many thousands of jobs you'd create! Hmm
False dichotomy. The choice is not between forcing employers to pay some minimum wage vs. employers paying no wage. The argument is about how much should employers pay above the market wage.
But the 'market wage' is held artificially low by the subsidy of tax credits and benefits. Is ten quid an hour really more than the *actual* market wage? I don't understand all you budding capitalists that would rather the tax payer pay an extra 10p for your coffee than you the customer. Whats minimum wage 15k? Tax credits 3-4k? 10 quid an hour is what 19-20k? scratchchin You're already paying these people 10 quid an hour give or take but in a convoluted manner which subsidises multinationals who can weasel out of the same taxes their local competition pay.

Now regarding your false dichotomy; I didn't say that was the choice, I was simply following the logic that if thousands of jobs would be lost if the minimum wage increased and tax credits decreased, then if minimum wage fell and tax credits increased you would surely create thousands of jobs? It's a bizarre defence to keeping the poorly paid dependent on the state.

Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 17th April 21:45

TwigtheWonderkid

43,246 posts

149 months

Friday 17th April 2015
quotequote all
£10/hour for a 9-5 job with a hours lunch is £18200 a year. Not £20K.

As for "who will pay?", I heard a stat recently that claimed 85% of people currently on min wage work for organisations with a turnover of £100m or above. Hotel chains, fast food chains and the like. So put an extra penny on a 99p cheeseburger.

I'm not a supporter of Dave Nellist but when he was an MP, he refused an MP's salary and took the UK's average wage. So at least he put his money where his mouth is.


johnfm

13,668 posts

249 months

Friday 17th April 2015
quotequote all
I generally back FBLM on this sort of stuff - he's a sharp knife.

Why is the tax payer subsidising big business? As said, they already have massive tax avoidance advantages compared to SMEs.

Companies that are on a knife edge and would fail by paying £10/hr probably aren't really worth having in the market anyway.

thinkofaname

280 posts

132 months

Friday 17th April 2015
quotequote all
fblm said:
But the 'market wage' is held artificially low by the subsidy of tax credits and benefits. Is ten quid an hour really more than the *actual* market wage? I don't understand all you budding capitalists that would rather the tax payer pay an extra 10p for your coffee than you the customer.
By "market wage" I mean in the conventional sense, of a wage that free agents would arrive at in a market. You are right that all the subsidies, credits, and benefits affect the wages people get. But I think that such interfering in the market doesn't help anyone, including the workers. All that happens is that you impose one regulation, and it distorts things in one way. Then you impose another regulation to correct that distortion, and another distortion crops up somewhere else, like a lump in the carpet. In the end you have a horribly complex system of regulations that doesn't actually make anyone better off.

Gargamel

14,957 posts

260 months

Friday 17th April 2015
quotequote all
johnfm said:
I generally back FBLM on this sort of stuff - he's a sharp knife.

Why is the tax payer subsidising big business? As said, they already have massive tax avoidance advantages compared to SMEs.

Companies that are on a knife edge and would fail by paying £10/hr probably aren't really worth having in the market anyway.
But if the SMEs can't afford the money, all that will be left is one man bands, and multinationals.

eldar

21,614 posts

195 months

Friday 17th April 2015
quotequote all
TwigtheWonderkid said:
£10/hour for a 9-5 job with a hours lunch is £18200 a year. Not £20K.

As for "who will pay?", I heard a stat recently that claimed 85% of people currently on min wage work for organisations with a turnover of £100m or above. Hotel chains, fast food chains and the like. So put an extra penny on a 99p cheeseburger.

I'm not a supporter of Dave Nellist but when he was an MP, he refused an MP's salary and took the UK's average wage. So at least he put his money where his mouth is.

Another penny on a burger or employ one less person and get the rest to work another minute a day?

Any you forgot the employers NI contribution...

mph1977

12,467 posts

167 months

Friday 17th April 2015
quotequote all
V8covin said:
fblm said:
I'm not what one would normally call socialist but that hardly seems unreasonable to me
Who's going to pay for it ?
At the moment a lot of low paid workers have their wages supplemented....or subsidised depending on your viewpoint...by tax credits.Move the onus onto the employer and you will see thousands of job losses
despite the fact these very same bosses are paying the costs of tax credit s through other taxation ...


anonymous-user

53 months

Friday 17th April 2015
quotequote all
thinkofaname said:
By "market wage" I mean in the conventional sense, of a wage that free agents would arrive at in a market. You are right that all the subsidies, credits, and benefits affect the wages people get. But I think that such interfering in the market doesn't help anyone, including the workers. All that happens is that you impose one regulation, and it distorts things in one way. Then you impose another regulation to correct that distortion, and another distortion crops up somewhere else, like a lump in the carpet. In the end you have a horribly complex system of regulations that doesn't actually make anyone better off.
I agree completely. Personally I'd up the minimum wage and get rid of working tax credits. OK a real free market capitalist would also get rid of the minimum wage but as a matter of practicality, in a country with more or less open borders, do you really want to be importing the worlds poor to work for less than the locals if you then have to pay the local to sit at home? I'm all for profit but IMO if a job is worth doing at all it's worth paying a wage someone can live on.

Dr Jekyll

23,820 posts

260 months

Saturday 18th April 2015
quotequote all
TwigtheWonderkid said:
As for "who will pay?", I heard a stat recently that claimed 85% of people currently on min wage work for organisations with a turnover of £100m or above. Hotel chains, fast food chains and the like. So put an extra penny on a 99p cheeseburger.

If putting an extra penny on a 99p burger would increase profit they'd be doing it anyway. They must have calculated that any increase in price will reduce sales to the point where they would be worse off.

98elise

26,365 posts

160 months

Saturday 18th April 2015
quotequote all
fblm said:
thinkofaname said:
fblm said:
Lets have companies pay nothing then and have the tax payer top them up even more. Think how many thousands of jobs you'd create! Hmm
False dichotomy. The choice is not between forcing employers to pay some minimum wage vs. employers paying no wage. The argument is about how much should employers pay above the market wage.
But the 'market wage' is held artificially low by the subsidy of tax credits and benefits. Is ten quid an hour really more than the *actual* market wage? I don't understand all you budding capitalists that would rather the tax payer pay an extra 10p for your coffee than you the customer. Whats minimum wage 15k? Tax credits 3-4k? 10 quid an hour is what 19-20k? scratchchin You're already paying these people 10 quid an hour give or take but in a convoluted manner which subsidises multinationals who can weasel out of the same taxes their local competition pay.

Now regarding your false dichotomy; I didn't say that was the choice, I was simply following the logic that if thousands of jobs would be lost if the minimum wage increased and tax credits decreased, then if minimum wage fell and tax credits increased you would surely create thousands of jobs? It's a bizarre defence to keeping the poorly paid dependent on the state.

Edited by fblm on Friday 17th April 21:45
How many low paid jobs are the main wage coming in? My wife works in a minimum wage part time zero hours job but it doesn't pay our bills, my wage does. We get no tax credits etc

None of the people at her place of work are the main breadwinner (apart from the business owner). I've also run my own retail business, and again none of my minimum wage staff were the main wage earner.


Pit Pony

8,265 posts

120 months

Saturday 18th April 2015
quotequote all
wc98 said:
V8covin said:
Who's going to pay for it ?
At the moment a lot of low paid workers have their wages supplemented....or subsidised depending on your viewpoint...by tax credits.Move the onus onto the employer and you will see thousands of job losses
at the moment a lot of companies are getting their profits subsidised by the tax payer topping up the wages of their low paid employees. it works both ways.
Only the one's with kids are getting extra via working families tax credits.

DrDoofenshmirtz

15,184 posts

199 months

Saturday 18th April 2015
quotequote all
Increase min wage. Cost of service must go up, but the tax burden is reduced and wasted elsewhere. Or is it not that simple?

loafer123

15,404 posts

214 months

Saturday 18th April 2015
quotequote all

Increase min wage, cost of goods/services goes up, less goods/services bought, less people employed, less tax received, more deficit.

The easiest way to work out the right answer is to compare with other countries who actually follow the alternative paths in different ways.

I certainly don't want to be more like the USA, but do I want to be more like the rest of the EU? Hell, no!

TwigtheWonderkid

43,246 posts

149 months

Saturday 18th April 2015
quotequote all
Dr Jekyll said:
TwigtheWonderkid said:
As for "who will pay?", I heard a stat recently that claimed 85% of people currently on min wage work for organisations with a turnover of £100m or above. Hotel chains, fast food chains and the like. So put an extra penny on a 99p cheeseburger.

If putting an extra penny on a 99p burger would increase profit they'd be doing it anyway. They must have calculated that any increase in price will reduce sales to the point where they would be worse off.
I always put the penny change in the charity box on the counter anyway. See a lot of others doing the same.