Planned Minimum wage rise.

[Supertramp 10]

Maybe, but if this cuts into company profits won't they seek to cut elsewhere, perhaps using more aggressive tax avoidance, cutting jobs or shifting more people onto zero hours contracts? In fact that is probably what they will do. The effect on tax revenue could well be neutral.

 

That said, if managed in the right way with regards to corporate behaviour this is a welcome move.

 

There was a paper linked from I think the independent or The Economist that explained the tax revenue increases only slightly but with the benefits bill decreasing slightly more. Or that is what they expect to happen. I can't find it at the minute as on the phone but it goes into a fair bit of detail on the expected results.

[Mecky 10]

So what is the excuse for prices already going up year on year despite general pay freezes or below inflation rises?

 

Waiting for the comeback that the weather is to blame for prices increases, especially in food. This will happen about a month before the new tax year, when shops will shove up their prices, which is less noticeable, and then shove them up again for the new tax years. It's called the squeeze

[ivanava 10]

A rise in the minimum wage will only cause an increase in prices for everything. So any increase in the minimum wage will be swallowed up by increased living costs. Stupid idea.

 

It was on TV last night about how wages have increased in China, UK companies that outsourced to China are now considering or already moving manufacturing back to the UK, I wonder if increasing the minimum wage will just send the work back to China.

 

---------- Post added 17-01-2014 at 09:04 ----------

 

So what is the excuse for prices already going up year on year despite general pay freezes or below inflation rises?

 

Chinese wages have increased and much of what we buy comes from China.

Edited January 17, 2014 by ivanava

[rickiethecat 10]

It was on TV last night about how wages have increased in China, UK companies that outsourced to China are now considering or already moving manufacturing back to the UK, I wonder if increasing the minimum wage will just send the work back to China.

 

This is exactly the problem. The jobs market is global these days so the whole concept of a minimum wage is only practical if every country has a minimum wage.

 

Suppose you run a factory or a call centre and have a choice between paying British workers £7 an hour or outsourcing the jobs to Asia and saving something like 75% of your labour costs, which are you going to do?

 

Every rise in the minimum wage makes the UK less competitive. I would scrap it altogether and give companies the right to choose how much to pay their staff without the dead hand of government interfering.

 

---------- Post added 17-01-2014 at 10:00 ----------

 

Love Sheffield forum, you know what each person is going to post before they do.

 

Mecky will **** on any idea just because its the Tories introducing it even if she would have loved it if it was a Labour policy.

 

Anna B will doom and gloom everything and always mention bankers or someone on high wages.

 

Mental the lot of you. Tarra.

 

:hihi:

 

Spot on! The two most tedious posters on the forum summed up in one post. Well said, sir!

[Jason Bourne 11]

Every rise in the minimum wage makes the UK less competitive. I would scrap it altogether and give companies the right to choose how much to pay their staff without the dead hand of government interfering.

 

And that is what sticks in the throat of ordinary working folk, who see the government slashing services in order to bail out banks to the tune of £hundreds of billions, just so the banksters can continue to pay themselves millions in bonuses all over again.

 

What was the bail out, if not the dead hand of government interference?

[I1L2T3 10]

This is exactly the problem. The jobs market is global these days so the whole concept of a minimum wage is only practical if every country has a minimum wage.

 

Suppose you run a factory or a call centre and have a choice between paying British workers £7 an hour or outsourcing the jobs to Asia and saving something like 75% of your labour costs, which are you going to do?

 

Every rise in the minimum wage makes the UK less competitive. I would scrap it altogether and give companies the right to choose how much to pay their staff without the dead hand of government interfering.

 

 

If you could outsource and cut costs of course you would look at it. But then there are other risks and costs too - it can't be said that every shift of work overseas is a success. For some companies it has been damaging, especially the call centre angle.

 

It isn't wages that make the UK uncompetitive - wage levels respond to living costs and if living costs are high wages will have to be high too. Controlling living costs is the way to get the UK competing, starting with housing costs. Unfortunately the last two governments seem to want to do everything they can to push housing costs ever higher.

[Bruno 10]

It's a good job that people are willing to work for pride, an average couple with kids on minimum wage would probably be better or no worse off on benefits. People on above minimum wage may not see this so will and agree it should be increased.

 

Plenty of people to say if it does then manufacturing will disappear etc, nut would they be willing to take a cut so increasing the minimum wage wouldn't cost the company?

[Mister M 1,625]

I'm really surprised that Tory supporters on here haven't already been trumpeting George Osborne's apparent conversion to the cause of raising the minimum wage to £7:00 per hour.

Of course he cannot ensure that it will go up to £7:00per hour, that task lies with the Low Pay Commission. Not sure whether this marks a significant change in the centre of gravity of British politics, which has been on a rightward march for many decades, or it is for electoral purposes. But at least there is recognition of the working poor, in a time when you'd be forgiven for thinking that there was only the middle classes and the recently emergent underclass.

[Penistone999 10]

So what is the excuse for prices already going up year on year despite general pay freezes or below inflation rises?

 

Increase in cost of raw materials

Increase in fuel costs

Increase in running costs , ie, electricity,gas .

 

There are many reason why prices increase year on year .

[Penistone999 10]

Im a Tory and raising the minimum wage is a stupid , badly thought out idea.

[Mecky 10]

I'm really surprised that Tory supporters on here haven't already been trumpeting George Osborne's apparent conversion to the cause of raising the minimum wage to £7:00 per hour.

 

 

How can they when they criticised Labour's planned increases in the NMW

[taxman 12]

Osborne is just panicking because Labour were doing alright with their agenda pointing out falling standards of living, and that while the economy might be growing for some, prices are still outstripping wages.

 

It's a complete turnaround from the days when The Tories didn't want the NMW at all.