£10 minimum wage?

New Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has unveiled his first policy - a £10 per hour minimum wage.

On the day that the Tory government attempts to slash tax credits by £4.4 billion in 2016-17, Mr McDonnell and new leader Jeremy Corbyn declared a tougher stance of opposition.

Mr McDonnell instead called for new higher rate of the 'national living wage', in line with a policy demanded by Labour's new candidate for Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.

George Osborne's plan to hike the minimum wage unveiled in the Summer Budget would take it to £9 an hour by 2020.

The Shadow Chancellor said: "The government's cuts to tax credits are a disgraceful attack on families up and down the country.

"Labour will bring down the welfare Bill, not by punishing the most vulnerable but through supporting a higher wage economy, introducing a real £10 an hour living wage, tackling high rents by addressing the housing crisis and supporting stronger trade unions to drive up pay.

"The IFS have said it is 'arithmetically impossible' for the Government’s so called ‘National Living Wage’ to make up for these loses to ordinary working people.

"It is an outrage that the cuts are being introduced without an impact assessment and that the Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC) has been denied the explanatory material and evidence it needs in order to properly scrutinise the changes."

The Chancellor's policy will see a 50p increase in the statutory minimum pay rate for the over-25s from April, to £7.20 an hour.

It will then be followed by a series of increases expected to take the rate above £9 an hour by 2020.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/09/15/story_n_8138900.html?1442317209&ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000067



Workers are going to be rejoicing across the country at this prospect... but are the business owners?

As someone who's self-employed, I'd love to be paid £10 an hour... but it'd be difficult.
How can I compete with other landscapers that are offering their services for cheaper, or even worse (on an ethical level), pocketing the £10/hour for themselves and then doing the job with sub-standard materials or lack of professionalism (these are the kind of people that wear 10-gallon hats and have spurs on their boots. You know the kind. They come from the school of thought of "What do I need a spirit level for? If it looks level, it's good enough."

And that's not even taking into account the many other small business that are struggling as it already is, without having to pay their employees a sum that would amount to being almost an additional £500 a month. No doubt that in order to cut costs, most employers would sooner sack their employees to save the business than have everyone go down with the ship. Can't have a tenner an hour if you don't have a job.
Then again, how can they run a business without employees? Food for thought.

These are merely a couple of the potentially numerous problems with this idea, though no doubt if we all got our thinking hats on we could come up with solutions to any problem that presents itself.

Where do you guys stand on this?

just the first of many many crazy policies from Jezza's team

Completely unenforceable and unrealistic in just about every way. Won't happen.

All that will really happen is we'll have a Norway like scenario. Cost of living won't come down. Cost of living will remain the same. Goods will simply cost more. People on higher salaries will now be on even higher salaries, becausee why do your job, when another job gives you the same amount for doing less work? Though on the plus side, we can afford things in Norway

People are also forgetting that this is "by 2020" The minimum wage would be around £9/10 around then ANY WAY. They'd be putting it up in real terms by perhaps..50p or so

Both paragraphs are very true. In which case there seems little reason to bother putting it up by an extra pound.

According to my grandmother, the financial situation is very much the same with regards to income and outgoings now as it was 50 years ago. Between my grandma and grandpa, they'd be earning £12 a week. £3 of that would be going on weekly rent. Not much different to me and my girlfriend earning £500 a week between us and paying £125 a week in rent. The numbers have changed, but we're still spending a quarter of our earnings on keeping a roof over our heads.

However. If more people have money, then more people are buying goods. Surely that should mean, in theory, that goods would cost less seeing as there's more of a demand for them? Although other factors such as limited supply of goods, amongst others, would complicate that (I don't really have much of a grasp on economics at all and I'm kinda winging it, so do please tell me if I'm wrong ).

Just as an aside, the minimum wage was a central policy of many a fascist nation-state. Mussolini was a particular fan.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/09/15/story_n_8138900.html?1442317209&ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000067



Workers are going to be rejoicing across the country at this prospect... but are the business owners?

As someone who's self-employed, I'd love to be paid £10 an hour... but it'd be difficult.
How can I compete with other landscapers that are offering their services for cheaper, or even worse (on an ethical level), pocketing the £10/hour for themselves and then doing the job with sub-standard materials or lack of professionalism (these are the kind of people that wear 10-gallon hats and have spurs on their boots. You know the kind. They come from the school of thought of "What do I need a spirit level for? If it looks level, it's good enough.")

And that's not even taking into account the many other small business that are struggling as it already is, without having to pay their employees a sum that would amount to being almost an additional £500 a month. No doubt that in order to cut costs, most employers would sooner sack their employees to save the business than have everyone go down with the ship. Can't have a tenner an hour if you don't have a job.
Then again, how can they run a business without employees? Food for thought.

These are merely a couple of the potentially numerous problems with this idea, though no doubt if we all got our thinking hats on we could come up with solutions to any problem that presents itself.

Where do you guys stand on this?

Completely unenforceable and unrealistic in just about every way. Won't happen.

All that will really happen is we'll have a Norway like scenario.

Because fraking will push sterling mega high?

No, that wages are high, but so's the cost of bread.

Which has happened in Norway because of the massive pressure of oil on the Krona, not NMW...

Maybe so, but the point still stands. A "high wage society" doesn't necessarily mean that you're better off

Relatively you would be.

The price of a standard loaf is unlikely to go up (there is unlikely to be an increase in consumption of standard bread). Burgen however, probably would as more people could afford bread with seeds and shizz.

Relatively you would be.

The price of a standard loaf is unlikely to go up (there is unlikely to be an increase in consumption of standard bread). Burgen however, probably would as more people could afford bread with seeds and shizz.

Are we though? Often things are VERY pricey in the UK compared to other nations, yet the wages also make up for it.