Minimum Wage
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Original post by Rakas21
There are far more British pensioners who have paid nowhere near enough tax to cover themselves than their will ever be Polish on British welfare. Hence why recent studies all suggest that immigrants have been net benefits (because immigrants are of working age which Britain has tonnes of pensioners).
I know
for all we know their socialist governments (our modern old citizens) of their days were probably too sissy on them and gave them much more than they were worth 
Original post by Mankytoes
There's National Insurance and that, sure, but that isn't a huge amount to be producing for a large company. Tenner, that's what, four coffees? Three pints of beer?
Even with the minimum wage, inequality has been rising. Employers are going to pay the least possible, no matter how profitable the employee.
Even with the minimum wage, inequality has been rising. Employers are going to pay the least possible, no matter how profitable the employee.
Inequality is only rising because the rich are able to use their capital to extract dividends be it by being a landlord or on the stock market. While the poor either can't or in many cases simply don't know how to take advantage of such things their incomes and disposable income have still risen.
I find it hard to say, the minimum wage isn't huge (though it should be enough to live on, why it has to be subsidised I think comes simply from an inability of people to tailor their standard of living to their income) but is still high enough that at least in our family business often it wouldn't be profitable to pay minimum wage to someone to do much of the work unless they were very efficient.
The lower rates for under 21 and 18 year olds do go some way to make up for that in fairness.
The lower rates for under 21 and 18 year olds do go some way to make up for that in fairness.
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
You need to wake up, people are actually worth way more than their employers pay them, minimum wage or no minimum wage. Since you must work to get money to pay for food and board, your employer has a gun to your head and accordingly the market rate for labour is way, way undervalued from what it would be if the essentials of life were distributed as a birthright, as they should be, via a universal basic income.
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.
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Seems like a pretty dumb number to have it at given the choice of earning x amount but with 40 hours a week work or x amount - 1p and 0 work i pick the latter.
Original post by Sunny_Smiles
I know for all we know their socialist governments (our modern old citizens) of their days were probably too sissy on them and gave them much more than they were worth
for all we know their socialist governments (our modern old citizens) of their days were probably too sissy on them and gave them much more than they were worth Because of their importance as a voting block that's still very true today, everything that is not means tested is wasting taxpayers money to make them feel good. The winter fuel allowance is a very good example of a policy whereby despite receiving a higher pension than somebody on JSA gets, that pensioner is deemed to need money for heating while the single mother and her child are not.
It'll be even worse for the next 20-30 years because the last 30 years have seen a marked rise in government spending with little to no improvement in private pension contributions. After that 30 year period though pension affordability may improve as we get the benefit of a higher birthrate from immigration (more taxpayers) and recent (hopefully continued) improvements in private pension contribution.... Or it could get much worse.
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.
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.
French workers never go on strike (contrary to French civil servants).
French economy is terrible because of the very high level of taxes, especially on salary. In France, the difference between gross salary, net salary, and salary cost (the sum effectively paid by the employer) is huge. On average, for a gross salary of 100, the employer pays 140 and the employee receives 70 (and he still has to pay income, land, property, etc. taxes).
The French minimum wage would be sustainable for employers if salary taxes weren't so high.
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.
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For. I've lived in a country where there's no minimum wage, it's not pretty.
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
How do we decide a person's worth?
Since its introduction in the late 90s I can see no evidence that it has increased the unemployment rate.
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.
Posted from TSR Mobile
Posted from TSR Mobile
Benefits - combined with social housing - should be subsistence rate plus a small surplus, this makes both economic and moral sense. It is up to benefits to set the minimum wage rate, not business to set the minimum wage rate and thereby the benefits rate.
Distributing benefits to all as a non-conditional universal basic income would be cheaper, fairer and more economical. The only people it would hurt would be company directors and senior management.
Who cares if something that makes people richer has a negative effect on business? Business should be working in the interests of humanity as a whole, rather than humanity as a whole bending over backwards for business. Business is not a god.
In any case, a minimum wage always improves "the economy". That's what happens when you give more money to the little people, they spend it and increase GDP. If you give more money to rich people they hoard it and amass power with which to challenge the nation-state, that is, in theory at least, the political manifestation of the people.
Original post by River85
How do we decide a person's worth?
le marché
Since its introduction in the late 90s I can see no evidence that it has increased the unemployment rate.
logically it can only serve to hinder unemployment, how could it possibly do anything else? it causes people to either have to work a lot harder for their wage (e.g. taking on several roles at once) or they lose their job
Original post by Rakas21
For but no higher than £8 per hour.
I used to take the free market approach in opposition to the minimum wage however in recent years we've seen unemployed historically low for a recession of the magnitude we saw and a number of other advanced economies like Germany and Australia have de facto minimum wages that are much higher than the UK but unemployment that is lower which suggests to me that the minimum wage is not quite the burden that the free market suggests it is, this is also backed up by evidence suggesting that real profit has risen over the past few decades.
That said, to better the lives of the poor i think it's very important that we also free them from the burden of taxation.
I used to take the free market approach in opposition to the minimum wage however in recent years we've seen unemployed historically low for a recession of the magnitude we saw and a number of other advanced economies like Germany and Australia have de facto minimum wages that are much higher than the UK but unemployment that is lower which suggests to me that the minimum wage is not quite the burden that the free market suggests it is, this is also backed up by evidence suggesting that real profit has risen over the past few decades.
That said, to better the lives of the poor i think it's very important that we also free them from the burden of taxation.
Quite, businesses always need work doing regardless of the wage level, and the pen-pushers at the top certainly aren't going to get their hands dirty doing anything useful. Since the same amount of work always needs doing, all raising wages does is redistribute the balance of compensation within the company, i.e. it comes out of the directors' and managers' salaries, if not the shareholders'.
It is the greatest victory of the business lobby that they have convinced workers of their expendability when really the exact reverse is true.
Taking the poor out of tax is admirable but it is clear that the plan is to merge or remove National Insurance and then base eligibility for social security on amount of tax paid by the individual.
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by Sunny_Smiles
le marché
Naked dogma, the invisible hand is no more real than the invisible pink unicorn.
logically it can only serve to hinder unemployment, how could it possibly do anything else? it causes people to either have to work a lot harder for their wage (e.g. taking on several roles at once) or they lose their job
How twisted can you get? With this perspective, you could make the population slaves and turn around and trumpet full employment from the rooftops (i.e. what the Tories have been doing for four years). Monitoring the unemployment rate is meant to help us understand the average and skewness of how financially secure the population is.
Original post by Rakas21
Inequality is only rising because the rich are able to use their capital to extract dividends be it by being a landlord or on the stock market. While the poor either can't or in many cases simply don't know how to take advantage of such things their incomes and disposable income have still risen.
True- minimum wage is a good way of stopping getting inequality getting out of control though.
Original post by scrotgrot
Naked dogma, the invisible hand is no more real than the invisible pink unicorn.
it's called a metaphor, bubba
How twisted can you get? With this perspective, you could make the population slaves and turn around and trumpet full employment from the rooftops (i.e. what the Tories have been doing for four years). Monitoring the unemployment rate is meant to help us understand the average and skewness of how financially secure the population is.
I never said that, there's always going to be a natural rate of unemployment
Against, it's a form of theft through government intervention.
Original post by Sunny_Smiles
it's called a metaphor, bubba
I never said that, there's always going to be a natural rate of unemployment
I never said that, there's always going to be a natural rate of unemployment
My point is that you can't call it good employment figures when it represents people working harder and harder for less/the same money.
Original post by scrotgrot
My point is that you can't call it good employment figures when it represents people working harder and harder for less/the same money.
is it ever a possibility that sometimes employers are paying their employees more than their market value? a minimum wage causes a lack of competition at that rise and under; the government artificially causing every shmuck to be synthetically worth something higher than they actually are causes them to lose their value of being able to work for less to make up for their lack of skill and thus they are naturally less able to find employment with this policy without companies losing money
Original post by The Angry Stoic
Against, it's a form of theft through government intervention.
Are you suggesting minimum wage employees are stealing their crappy wages from their rich employers? I didn't realise rightist propaganda was so good!
Original post by Sunny_Smiles
and people can pay rent today if they're sensible, they just need to move out of very expensive areas like london (which really drives me up the wall when that's the plan of so many people these days to move to london which is probably the most expensive city in the whole of europe/eurasia).
A sensible point. Please tell this to anyone on this forum who scoffs 'I don't care if you live in a deprived ex-industrial area with no investment or money in your pocket! MOVE TO LONDON!'.
It ain't that simple you dicks.
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