The Student Room Group

Minimum Wage

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(edited 1 year ago)

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I'm against it on all fronts - people shouldn't be forced to pay people more than they're worth, and it simply increases the unemployment rate and causes more people to rely on tax money over the private sector
Original post by Krollo
Are you for or against the existence of a minimum wage? In my opinion it should be just over benefits but no higher, in order to dissuade people from sitting around scrounging all day, but it undoubtedly does have a negative effect on business to some extent.


Massively for, it's absolutely essential to help prevent employers from exploiting workers. It is also essential to ensure people's dignity, and make sure that they have enough money to live properly. Everyone should get a reasonable wage for a hard days work, it isn't like it isn't still pretty low.

We were told it would lead to a rise in unemployment. It didn't.
Original post by Sunny_Smiles
I'm against it on all fronts - people shouldn't be forced to pay people more than they're worth, and it simply increases the unemployment rate and causes more people to rely on tax money over the private sector


People like you deserve to be sent up a chimney.


The minimum wage is already to low as it is for a lot of people. This is why the state has to come in and give a lot of people money. This benefits the businesses as they can really on the state to ensure their employees actually get paid enough whilst increaisng thier own profit margins. The poor are not the only ones that benefit from the welfare state. It is the middle class workers that get screwed over. The lower classes and upper classes benefit the most, especially as so many of the exceedingly wealthy avoid/evade tax.
(edited 9 years ago)
Reply 4
I'm for it because it protects people to an extent from exploitation. But it needs to be raised, the living wage is found to have been around £7 something and the minimum wage for some people can be as low as £2 something. It's disgraceful that they can get away with paying people so little and a lot of jobs for unskilled people pay less than the living wage - that is, not paying people the amount they need to live on. And they wonder why people would rather be on benefits? It needs a revamp ASAP.

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Original post by Sunny_Smiles


Well that is how society would look without any welfare or law enforcement to ensure people have enough to get by. If you have a mass surplus of potential workers a business owner can afford to pay them practically nothing, this is termed wage slavery. If things get bad the rich with all the capital can find they have a bloody revolt on their hands. So it is incredibly short sighted not to be in favor of ensuring people have enough to live even for the rich.
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
Well that is how society would look without any welfare or law enforcement to ensure people have enough to get by. If you have a mass surplus of potential workers a business owner can afford to pay them practically nothing, this is termed wage slavery. If things get bad the rich with all the capital can find they have a bloody revolt on their hands. So it is incredibly short sighted not to be in favor of ensuring people have enough to live even for the rich.


I think you're being too pessimistic
mass surplus of workers? where'd that point come from? a population rise?
and if they can afford to pay them practically nothing while there are multiple businesses looking to hire, then I don't see how that can exist in that way when businesses compete and thus will have to increase wages to get better workers
and there's never going to be a revolution, believe me - capitalism only makes people's lives better
The minimum wage should be as it says. It should be the minimum wage. It's enough to avoid exploitation and give the worker a basic standard of living, but nothing else. Anything more and you start getting into that territory where businesses don't want to employ as many people any longer.

Look at France as an example. They have a huge minimum wage. Combine this with workers who spend most of their working lives on strike and you get businesses leaving. It's part of the reason why their economy is so terrible. Why would a business want a French worker when they can pay a German or British worker far less for the same job?

High minimum wages look great on paper, but if it's too high you hurt businesses and the people who then either lose their jobs or who end up not getting a job.
Original post by Genocidal
The minimum wage should be as it says. It should be the minimum wage. It's enough to avoid exploitation and give the worker a basic standard of living, but nothing else. Anything more and you start getting into that territory where businesses don't want to employ as many people any longer.

Look at France as an example. They have a huge minimum wage. Combine this with workers who spend most of their working lives on strike and you get businesses leaving. It's part of the reason why their economy is so terrible. Why would a business want a French worker when they can pay a German or British worker far less for the same job?

High minimum wages look great on paper, but if it's too high you hurt businesses and the people who then either lose their jobs or who end up not getting a job.


what if I wanted to hire someone that wasn't worth the price of the minimum wage? what if they were evidently more expensive to hire than not hiring them? wouldn't I have to hire less people and make my workers have to work much harder to keep their jobs on a minimum wage if that's possible? and what if I wanted to pay someone to work less than an hour's work (I assume there is a minimum wage for an hour's work)? what if it was work that they consent personally to being paid for under a minimum wage (e.g. if it was really easy work that most people would do for free e.g. video game testing, sofa testing, etc)?
Definitely against. The free market should decide the ruling wage rate in industries. Efficiency > Laziness to get a better job/higher (useful) education.
Original post by Sunny_Smiles
I think you're being too pessimistic
mass surplus of workers? where'd that point come from? a population rise?
and if they can afford to pay them practically nothing while there are multiple businesses looking to hire, then I don't see how that can exist in that way when businesses compete and thus will have to increase wages to get better workers
and there's never going to be a revolution, believe me - capitalism only makes people's lives better


We do have a surplus of workers, have you seen our unemployment levels? Do you think there are two million jobs not being done? That point came from technological rises, rises in competing economies, exhaustion of our coal resources, lots of reasons.

Only if we have mechanisms to make it at least partly fair.
Original post by Mankytoes
We do have a surplus of workers, have you seen our unemployment levels? Do you think there are two million jobs not being done? That point came from technological rises, rises in competing economies, exhaustion of our coal resources, lots of reasons.

Only if we have mechanisms to make it at least partly fair.


I thought unemployment was decreasing these days?
Original post by Sunny_Smiles
what if I wanted to hire someone that wasn't worth the price of the minimum wage? what if they were evidently more expensive to hire than not hiring them? wouldn't I have to hire less people and make my workers have to work much harder to keep their jobs on a minimum wage if that's possible? and what if I wanted to pay someone to work less than an hour's work (I assume there is a minimum wage for an hour's work)? what if it was work that they consent personally to being paid for under a minimum wage (e.g. if it was really easy work that most people would do for free e.g. video game testing, sofa testing, etc)?


Then you employ them as an independent contractor and pay them a fixed rate. Or you take on an unpaid intern like all the big companies do when they need a minion to do menial jobs.
Original post by Genocidal
Then you employ them as an independent contractor and pay them a fixed rate. Or you take on an unpaid intern like all the big companies do when they need a minion to do menial jobs.


what if I wanted to pay them a varying rate, going both above and below the minimum wage per week? :lol: I'm sure there are a lot of companies that would like to pay a person in terms of their output in their company
I am for it. We already live in a country where people in work are forced to use food banks to get by.

Employers should be responsible for ensuring that their staff are looked after. That means being paid a decent wage. I would like to see both a minimum wage and some kind of living wage which employers can opt into - for some kind of reward.

At the moment, benefit payments top up low wages to some extent. I don't see why employers should have their staffing costs subsidised by the tax payer.
Original post by Sunny_Smiles
what if I wanted to pay them a varying rate, going both above and below the minimum wage per week? :lol: I'm sure there are a lot of companies that would like to pay a person in terms of their output in their company


New project every week. It gets complicated, but it could be done if you really wanted to.
Original post by Sunny_Smiles
I'm against it on all fronts - people shouldn't be forced to pay people more than the capitalist class determine they're worth...


Fixed.
Original post by Genocidal
New project every week. It gets complicated, but it could be done if you really wanted to.


I thought for an employment contract they had to adhere to the minimum wage?
Original post by Sunny_Smiles
I thought for an employment contract they had to adhere to the minimum wage?


Not at all. You can pay freelancers via a fixed rate. It's like paying a builder. You pay them for the project, rather than sticking to any minimum wage.

Alternatively, if you were a small business you'd do it cash in hand or something like that and likely nobody would notice.
Original post by Sunny_Smiles
what if I wanted to pay them a varying rate, going both above and below the minimum wage per week? :lol: I'm sure there are a lot of companies that would like to pay a person in terms of their output in their company


The primary purpose of a capitalist enterprise is to make and maximise profit for the owner. In the absence of any wage regulation those deemed to be at the low-skill or low-demand sectors would at best be paid the smallest amount possible above starvation levels (pay someone too low a wage and it will affect their labour output). Though even then unemployed people would find themselves competing with each other so as to accept below-starvation levels of wages, which they would attempt to supplement by begging/stealing. This is what happens in the USA where minimum-wage is very low as is welfare provision.

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