Should young people be paid minimum wage?

Original post by TimmonaPortella

Put yourselves in the shoes of an employer.

You have two possible candidates for a position on a counter in a clothing store (just as a random example). Candidate A is 18 years old, and fresh out of school; he has maybe worked for a while at weekends, but nothing more. Nor has he ever worked in this particular role before. Candidate B is 24 years old and has been in this type of work before. He doesn't need to be trained from scratch, and he has references and a history of full time employment that show he is reliable.

If and B are the same price, do you take the risk and go for A? Of course you don't. Even leaving aside the point about experience in that particular role, why would you? It's just more hassle and risk.

Apples and oranges.

One of them has "worked a bit at weekends" and the other has "history of full time employment". This has zilch to do with their age, you just made these different to try and prove your dumb point.

Experience is valuable, yes. But age =/= experience. Employers are able to distinguish the two, btw, they're not as stupid as you think they are.

Reply 23

Original post by Treeroy

Except that we DON'T have a welfare system available to young people because you are not entitled to 90% of benefits until you are 21 or older. The people who earn the least are the ones not entitled to benefits! It's nuts.

And yes as I said I know plenty of adults who have jobs for disposable income. Mostly Wives who have high-earning husbands who get a job as something to have some more money. Like I know a middle age couple, one of them earns well over £150K and the other one stays at home. Recently she decided to get a job to give her something to do and have some extra money. She doesn't need the money, the job is PURELY to get disposable income. Should she only get paid £5 an hour cause she doesn't really need it?! What a stupid argument.

That about the wife is an argument for tax credits. Such families are whom Osborne's current changes will benefit at the expense of low-earning couples requiring TC's. Guess which family votes Tory.

Reply 24

Original post by Treeroy

It has everything to do with age. You can't build up experience by the time you're 18. Younger people, if they are in competition with older people on an equal footing, will always end up competing with some people who have more experience.

If you think experience has 'zilch to do with' how long people have been alive and able to gain experience I think you need to sit down and think this through a little.

Reply 25

ChaoticButterfly

Original post by TimmonaPortella

It's a raced to the bottom. These employers should be made to pay a living wage. They don;t like that, well tough.

They are exploitative. It takes no more than two days to train someone up to a standard where they can be productive in these types of jobs. There is no excuse and if they don't like it they can go to jail. They just want wage slaves and they are scum. What is worse is that they expect em and you to top up their employers wages who they are not paying enough.

The only exceptions I would make to the above is small business that really are struggle to stay afloat in which case I would support benefit top up of poor wages in those cases, or some kind of set up like that. But the large chains and corporations are taking the piss.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 26

Original post by ChaoticButterfly

Right, so this argument has proceeded like this:

Me: Here's why the minimum wage being lower for younger people advantages them in seeking employment.
You: It doesn't advantage them, because manual jobs are easy.
Me: Here's why it actually does advantage them.
You: Yeah, well, employers are evil and they should pay a wage above that legally required of them or go to jail!

You'll forgive me if I don't think this is worth continuing with.

Reply 27

Original post by TimmonaPortella

Are you seriously suggesting that I am better off earning lower than minimum wage, than above it? Lmao. You think it's hard to get a job or something.?

Reply 28

Original post by ChaoticButterfly

They just want wage slaves and they are scum.

I can almost see the froth in your mouth.

I would suggest to you that the fact that you're struggling to get jobs is no reason to launch into visceral, incoherent hate rants against everyone who hasn't offered you employment. Particularly not if you're going to represent it as a response to a totally different point.

Reply 29

Original post by Treeroy

Are you seriously suggesting that I am better off earning lower than minimum wage, than above it? Lmao. You think it's hard to get a job or something.?

I am suggesting, as would be quite evident to anyone who paid attention in their primary school reading comprehension classes, that you are better off earning a minimum wage set at a lower rate than no wage at all.

Price is a useful bargaining chip in seeking employment. This is not a difficult concept.

Reply 30

ChaoticButterfly

Original post by TimmonaPortella

I can almost see the froth in your mouth.

Well it's what I think of them. They are immoral. The people who work on the shop floor generate their wealth and they can't even pay them a living wage. If I ever owned a business or was in a position where I was in charge of pay scales etc I would do my best to pay everyone at least the living wage, even if I could get away with paying less. That would be the bare minimum. Ideally I would rather run it some kind of cooperative style set up.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 31

Original post by TimmonaPortella

But I wouldn't be earning no wage at all. My work has hired plenty of over 21 year olds with no work experience. Why are you assuming you know every employer inside and out?

Reply 32

Original post by Treeroy

Are you seriously suggesting that I am better off earning lower than minimum wage, than above it? Lmao. You think it's hard to get a job or something.?

Assume you don't get full time hours if struggling so much for money. Lower minimum wage means more hours and less incentive for employers to automate or run skeleton staff. Simply use tax credits to ensure everyone has a liveable household income. Then if they live with parents/spouse they get nothing, if they manage alone like you they get what they need.

Reply 33

Good bloke

Young people required to be paid the same as older people would be at a severe disadvantage to those older people when competing against them for jobs. It has nothing whatever to do with how easy the job is to do or to learn.

They don't , in general, have the same level of reliability - only yesterday there was a TV report on an experimental late starting of school for older pupils, as research shows they cannot cope with being at school at 9am. Employers like people to start on time and be effective from the off.

They aren't generally used to the disciplines of the workplace. Getting rid of an unproductive employee is costly, so advocating the firing of those that don't work out does not address the problem; employers don't want the costs of constant or repeated recruitment.

In order to incentivise employers to take them on, the cost to the employer has to be lower. If it weren't youth unemployment would be twice as bad as it is already.

Reply 34

Original post by ChaoticButterfly

Well it's what I think of them. They are immoral. If I ever owned a business or was in a position where I was in charge of pay scales etc I would do my best to pay everyone at least the living wage. That would be the bare minimum. Ideally I would rather run it some kind of cooperative style set up.

Perhaps you would. Still, if you only needed one worker, and there were two candidates with a substantial age gap between them, if you were a prudent business owner you'd hire the older one most of the time, because, absent any price advantage for the younger one, they'd usually be the better candidate.

Reply 35

ChaoticButterfly

Another argument against exploitative pay is that it gets in the way of automation. It's a form of inverted Luddite-ism.

Reply 36

Original post by TimmonaPortella

I think he is sensible enough to crawl up the arses of employers when necessary. We do not, however, yet need to fear committing thought crime against them, this not being North Korea

Reply 37

Original post by scrotgrot

Assume you don't get full time hours if struggling so much for money.

But I do work full time. I'm struggling so much for money because I live in an expensive city and I do not earn minimum wage because the law is unjust and allows my employer to discriminate against me.

Reply 38

Reue

Minimum wage should be the same regardless of age imo.

Reply 39