Is the minimum wage enough to live by?

Lord Hysteria

and who would choose to earn less per hour? :confused:

...

You have no right to make that call for everyone else.

Lord Hysteria

In any case, that is irrelevant to the thread.

Hardly, given that one of the poll options is "Get rid".

Reply 21

numb3rb0y

Unless you consider a blatant attack on personal responsibility and individual liberty to be an imposition...

Oh you're an arse.

You really think that families living on the breadline should be forced into poverty and people made to work jobs for absolute pittance to give light to your pathetic liberalistic ideals?

No-one WANTS to earn a crap wage. NO-ONE is bothered about having a 'choice' (and really, it isn't a choice) to accept lower wages.

The minimum wage is there to prevent employers picking up a load of very, very cheap labour by taking on people who need work to survive, and paying them pathetic wages that do not fully reflect the value of their work. When it comes to employment of this kind, the bargaining power is VERY much with the employer, and your everyday person has no say whatsoever. State intervention of some kind is a balancing necessity.

When you're earning that little, it's never a choice. It's the necessity to take any job you can because you need the money.

If you think that your ridiculous, pompous ideas about the rights and wrongs of state intervention have any place in the realities of the poor and unemployed whatsoever, then you are very, very wrong indeed and need a check on reality.

Reply 22

J4GGYBoss

OP

13

prospective student

well considering inflation is on the rise this would be disastrous for anyone trying to live on the minimum wage. their income is already being reduced in real terms we dont need it decreased in nominal terms as well!!!

hey inflation just dropped by 1% to 3.2% now, and their saying theres more fear of deflation than inflation. Im not saying a decrease will be politically the best thing to do, but in theory it would help create more jobs.

Reply 23

Lord Hysteria

18

numb3rb0y

You have no right to make that call for everyone else.

Riiiiight. So I assume you'd be asking for less than the minimum wage? And as a result exercising your 'right'.
This is the most ridiculous notion I have heard all day. Someone violates a 'right' by taking something we want, and in this case a violation would be to give us more of what we want ... :rofl:

numb3rb0y

Hardly, given that one of the poll options is "Get rid".

Arh I didn't see a poll. Then the OP is confusing as the poll and thread title are contradictory.

Reply 24

Lord Hysteria

18

SoundDevastation

Someone having trouble getting a minimum wage job?

You mean someone having trouble getting a job? :confused:

Reply 25

numb3rb0y

You have no right to make that call for everyone else.

Stupid boy. There is no 'call', no decision and no choice in the matter.

When someone on the poverty line needs work, they will take anything going. They can't snub their noses at an employer or renegotiate.

The minimum wage ensures that whatever they get, it will be enough to live on and it will compensate them appropriately for their time.

It prevents widespread abuse of the poor, needy and those with families to care for, and ensures a fair wage for everybody regardless of whether they live in economic splendour or plight.

Reply 26

Kaykiie

Minimum wage will never be gotten rid of. Its LAW, the only way to get rid of it would be for the government to pass an act that sounds something like "Get rid of the minimum wage" ( :wink:

hey is imaginative :P) They would face massive opposition, and if it did get passed there would be a massive uproar, and no1 would vote labour back in to government. Conservatives wouldnt get rid of it at all, hence their name. Lib Dems dont get a look in to be honest.

Reply 27

lodzinski

14

J4GGYBoss

hey inflation just dropped by 1% to 3.2% now, and their saying theres more fear of deflation than inflation. Im not saying a decrease will be politically the best thing to do, but in theory it would help create more jobs.

But in theory wages are, nominally, sticky downwards, so you wouldn't be able to drop it . Also, given the marginal propensity to save being low due to the interest rate, and very low for those on minimum wage, any increase in the income of those on minimum wage would probably be near entirely spent in consumption, helping to spend the country out of a recession.

Reply 28

Lord Hysteria

18

Danny_777

No-one WANTS to earn a crap wage. NO-ONE is bothered about having a 'choice' (and really, it isn't a choice) to accept lower wages.

Ha ha! I know!
I have yet to head of someone who would choose to earn a crap wage :rolleyes:

Reply 29

numb3rb0y

Danny_777

Oh you're an arse.

Nice ad hominem. I'd respond, but I'm actually capable of argument without resorting to insults.

Danny_777

You really think that families living on the breadline should be forced into poverty and people made to work jobs for absolute pittance to give light to your pathetic liberalistic ideals?

If you can actually show me illegitimate coercion, go ahead.

Danny_777

No-one WANTS to earn a crap wage. NO-ONE is bothered about having a 'choice' (and really, it isn't a choice) to accept lower wages.

I care about having a choice. So do most classical liberals, libertarians, and fiscal conservatives. There are actually quite a lot of us.

Danny_777

The minimum wage is there to prevent employers picking up a load of very, very cheap labour by taking on people who need work to survive, and paying them pathetic wages that do not fully reflect the value of their work.

Did someone just invoke the labour theory of value? :rolleyes:

Danny_777

When it comes to employment of this kind, the bargaining power is VERY much with the employer, and your everyday person has no say whatsoever.

Oh, so unionisation doesn't work? Industrial action? Working somewhere else? Not working at all?

Danny_777

State intervention of some kind is a balancing necessity.

Given that society has survived for thousands of years without any minimum wage, I hardly think you can call it a necessity.

Danny_777

When you're earning that little, it's never a choice. It's the necessity to take any job you can because you need the money.

There is always a choice, even if it's between two less-than-fantastic options. I might, however, point out that if you're earning that little then you probably did something wrong, or at least you probably would've in a free market system, although I couldn't really speak for this one since gods know how much interventionism has screwed up the equilibrium.

Danny_777

If you think that your ridiculous, pompous ideas about the rights and wrongs of state intervention have any place in the realities of the poor and unemployed whatsoever, then you are very, very wrong indeed and need a check on reality.

Yay authoritarianism!

Incidentally, it's interesting that employers supposedly don't have any rights of association or expression. I guess freedom is just collateral damage, eh?

Thanks for the negative rep, by the way. That -25 really hurt :rolleyes:

Reply 30

prospective student

3

J4GGYBoss

hey inflation just dropped by 1% to 3.2% now, and their saying theres more fear of deflation than inflation. Im not saying a decrease will be politically the best thing to do, but in theory it would help create more jobs.

if creating jobs is what you want to do then the government should do what they have always promised and help people who want to work flexibly e.g. part-time to accomodate children.
this would mean more people were earning (just less than before) and so unemploymwnt could decrease.

plus economic measures like gdp and inflation can never be correctly calculated til years after the event.

Reply 31

L i b

19

Danny_777

Oh you're an arse.

You really think that families living on the breadline should be forced into poverty and people made to work jobs for absolute pittance to give light to your pathetic liberalistic ideals?

Would you sell your liberty for a couple of pence? I certainly wouldn't, and supposing you say yes - what right have you to impose this on others?

If you really want to talk about the situation of the poor, perhaps you ought to consider those 2 million who are current out of work.

NO-ONE is bothered about having a 'choice' (and really, it isn't a choice) to accept lower wages.

I think that's obviously false from this thread, and moreover it is not only down to the employee, but also the employer - each has a stake in the contract.

The minimum wage is there to prevent employers picking up a load of very, very cheap labour by taking on people who need work to survive, and paying them pathetic wages that do not fully reflect the value of their work.

So instead they don't pick up 'a load', only a few, who are less productive as a result of their decreased numbers, and also put people out of work - not to mention having their freedom to contract withdrawn.

When it comes to employment of this kind, the bargaining power is VERY much with the employer, and your everyday person has no say whatsoever. State intervention of some kind is a balancing necessity.

If you think that your ridiculous, pompous ideas about the rights and wrongs of state intervention have any place in the realities of the poor and unemployed whatsoever, then you are very, very wrong indeed and need a check on reality.

Yeah, right and wrong doesn't matter where the poor are concerned. :rolleyes:

I really wonder sometimes about the lefties: you seem overly eager to assume a paternalistic role over those who claim to want to 'help', and only result in treating them like animals.

The idea of being poor and free seems to have disappeared in this country: being taxed out of smoking, drinking and any other vice, being told how to spend their money and constantly reminded how to behave. It's appalling.

Reply 32

Kaykiie

I am 18 turnin 19, and due to my situation, which i wont go into, i have to move out of my parents, im still in college, doin my a levels a year late, and the only thing i have to survive on is £47.95 benefits a week. Its ridiculous, i would rather be in a job tbh, but im not dropping my A levels, and a part time job wouldnt pay the rent. Who is to say that anything is all you need to live on? I would like to see all the MPs living on minimum wage or £47.95 a week! Stupid

Reply 33

misternite

3

Guys, I think the idea behind the minimum wage was to make employment more appealing, getting people off unemployment. Stating current unemployment figures is ridiculous and you know it, the minimum wage had a positive effect on our economy and the standard of living for many over the past 10 years.

Reply 34

numb3rb0y

If you can actually show me illegitimate coercion, go ahead.

I cannot 'show' you it. It is a fact of life. Take, for example, the ex-collieries in the North. If an employer was to set up a factory there and offer, say, fifty jobs, he would be inundates with applications. If he decided to pay £3 an hour, he would still be inundated with applications.

He can decide to pay whatever the hell he wants, and he will still get employees because the economic reality of their situation forces them to get any kind of job they can.

He could even give them a job at £3 p/h, and call them up after a month and reduce it to £2 p/h, saying "take it or leave it". The employee CANNOT bargain, because they NEED the money.

If that's not coercion and abuse, I don't know what is.

numb3rb0y

I care about having a choice. So do most classical liberals, libertarians, and fiscal conservatives. There are actually quite a lot of us.

Oh, I forgot about all those classical liberals and fiscal conservatives who work in Shop2Go! to support their struggling families.

Really, your argument is quite hypocritical. You claim you are arguing against the minimum wage so that people can have the chance to make their own """choice""" and go "Yes, I'd prefer to be unable to exist comfortably or support my family", i.e. you're arguing against interventionism, when really, your argument is interventionist in itself. If people should be so autonomous, why don't you let them speak for themselves? Could it be, perhaps, because none of this liberal rubbish exists in reality, and is really the preserve of academics who are entirely unaffected by the minimum wage?

numb3rb0y

Oh, so unionisation doesn't work? Industrial action? Working somewhere else? Not working at all?

Unions are practically dead. Working somewhere else is NOT an option for most of the people forced to accept minimum wage jobs, especially at times like this.

numb3rb0y

Given that society has survived for thousands of years without any minimum wage, I hardly think you can call it a necessity.

LOL

I'm sorry, but are you COMPLETELY ignoring the thousands of years of horrific poverty that we have endured? Have you forgotten the HUGE divide between the rich and the poor that existed up until midway through the 20th century, and is currently closer to being gone than ever?

In the industrial age, employers were able to take on hundreds and hundreds of child employees and pay them next to nothing PURELY because their families NEEDED the money.

numb3rb0y

There is always a choice, even if it's between two less-than-fantastic options.

Absolute, utter rubbish. The choice between a) a minimum wage job and b) absolute poverty is no choice at all. To even suggest that it is suggests to me that you are very, very divorced from reality, and desperately need to go out and experience the practicality of existing on minimum wage jobs and having to support a family/yourself.

It's like me pointing a gun at your head ans saying "Give me your money or die". The only choice you have is a useless, technical one that has no place or grounding in reality at all, and on most people's view does not exist.

numb3rb0y

I might, however, point out that if you're earning that little then you probably did something wrong

What, like being born into a poor area with a huge unemployment problem to an uneducated, single parent with five other children to look after? Yes, this person certainly deserves a poor wage.

Reply 35

L i b

Would you sell your liberty for a couple of pence? I certainly wouldn't, and supposing you say yes - what right have you to impose this on others?

What right do YOU have to say that people living on the verge of poverty would rather have an enhanced sense of 'freedom' than the ability to provide for their family?

L i b

If you really want to talk about the situation of the poor, perhaps you ought to consider those 2 million who are current out of work.

Like my dad? He's currently facing redundancy, and if he loses his job, we will have to move out of our house because we cannot afford the mortgage.

What kind of choice does my dad have? Take a crap job or we will lose our house, car, etc. That's his choice, and that's no choice at all.

L i b

The idea of being poor and free seems to have disappeared in this country: being taxed out of smoking, drinking and any other vice, being told how to spend their money and constantly reminded how to behave. It's appalling.

Are you COMPLETELY out of touch with reality?!

Your ridiculous academic perception of freedom doesn't matter a **** when it's a choice between that and forcing your children to live in poverty.

Reply 36