Families need £36,800 to live acceptably.....

paradisiac said:
the problem is, i have been on the same wage for 3 years, it doesn't go up to match inflation. so i end up pretty much effectively taking a pay decrease each year.
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Exactly why i have moved company, i'm very comfy where i am now but to not look for the 4k rise i deserve / need is silly for a little bit of comfort.
 
paradisiac said:
now this would be good. or just up the minimum wage so its easier for us to be closer to the £18k. my employer 'could' easily give me a pay rise to make my life easier and not really affect him too much, but he wont as he isn't forced to.
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If you upped the minimum wage, people would lose their jobs. That's a non starter I think.
 
My wife doesn;t work at the moment and is due to give birth to our second child in a couple months' time. Personally, it would be impossible to live on that but can see that someone with less outgoings might be able to, as that equates to +/- £2,400 per month, but it will be a tight squeeze.
 
Reminds me of the "£100k per year and broke" article the Evening Standard ran a few years ago.

Replace childcare with school fees and 5 year old hatch-back for an A4 Audi and you won't be far off....
 
paradisiac said:
really? but if I earned more, I would spend more, like everyone else. therefore a need for things would be greater, therefore more jobs created to cater for these needs surely?
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The extra money you have to spend will be gobbled up by the increase in the prices of services and goods as a result of the minimum wage increasing.

Vicious circle yo!
 
elmarko1234 said:
Exactly,

10k PA after tax is around £11,5k PA.

That's £848.53 a month.

Increase that to a fair £1,216.86 a month (£18k PA) then you get almost £400 extra a month to spend in the economy, not worry about the bills & generally enjoy a higher quality of life.

A pretty small increase in wage turns no disposable income into £400 a month disposable income.

It's not like I'm advocating giving people £5000 a month for any job, just enough to enable people to boost demand for goods & services & reduce all of the associated negative social consequences of people living on a low wage.


I fully agree, the stupidity involved in taking with one hand & giving with the other is immense.

Think of the associated costs involved in administrating that mess, not to mention the potential for abuse.
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Yes we should be moving the no tax threshold up. It is happening though in this government so its progress. I also liked the old 10p rate (that was scrapped by Labour) it encouraged a person on low wages to do a little extra, it feels quite a step up to 20p rate.

Personally I would like to see bandings in 10p increments right up to the 50p rate (they dont all have to be equal width) just to progressively ramp up the rate.

I dont think the current mid 30k mark is a higher rate tax payer at all, should be more like 50k.

And I would combine all benefits back into the tax rate for working people, so if they are a net payer of tax they still pay tax but receive nothing back. If they are a net recipient they have a negative tax code and hence receive more in net wages than they are paid gross. Its less payments to actually make, companies would simply account for it as they currently do with a smaller net payment to the revenue. I think some of the issues goes back to individuals tax affairs are private and if they changed the scheme to work this way they would in effect be advising the employer of peoples tax affairs. Some unscrupulous employers may look at this and say your getting a pay cut as you get so much from the government
 
paradisiac said:
really? but if I earned more, I would spend more, like everyone else. therefore a need for things would be greater, therefore more jobs created to cater for these needs surely?
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Its a bit like tax cuts, the assumptions are both:

a) You will spend it and not save it
b) When you spend, you will spend it in the UK.

Also, for minimum wage rises there is a negative affect on Government pay-rolls, in order to compensate for the extra spend and the negative affects on inflation.

There is also a negative impact on international competitiveness. Read regarding German wages, Unions and their resistance to wage rises.

In this context, tax cuts are more preferable to minimum wage rises in our current situation and that is why the government policy of raising the tax threshold is a good thing.
 
I think it all depends on experiences.

I graduated and got my first job in 2006 earning £17,500 per annum. I lived in Parsons Green in Fulham, which is arguably a very expensive place to live compared with the rest of the country. I somehow managed to get by fine on this, although I walked to work and had no week-time social life to speak of. I'd spend my earnings on the weekend.

Looking back, I had no car or commuting costs. I had no real debts, didn't have many vices, but purely spent my earnings on lunch, dinner and weekends.

I wouldn't last a month if I was put in that situation now - yet I still don't have a car, and my commuting costs are minimal as far as London travel prices go.
 
Besty said:
Its a bit like tax cuts, the assumptions are both:

a) You will spend it and not save it
b) When you spend, you will spend it in the UK.

Also, for minimum wage rises there is a negative affect on Government pay-rolls, in order to compensate for the extra spend and the negative affects on inflation.

There is also a negative impact on international competitiveness. Read regarding German wages, Unions and their resistance to wage rises.

In this context, tax cuts are more preferable to minimum wage rises in our current situation and that is why the government policy of raising the tax threshold is a good thing.
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i was unaware of this tax threshold increase plan. to be honest i don't know what the current one is (other than my working tax got stopped this year as i was told the cutoff is now £13k and i am apparently earning close to that.
 
We need rent legislation like in Germany, atm poorer/working class are not spending, they need more disposable income as they are a large and important demographic that spend into the economy, rent/mortgage rates are taking up too much of peoples income these days, people say move to a better area for better work but then that is negated again by much higher rental costs, tax payers atm are lining the pockets of buy to let landlords, we need to either compete with social housing or legislate the private rental market like in Germany, I think this would benefit everyone, the economy, less government spending, and raise the standard of living for many, you could even potentially ditch minimum wage with much cheaper rental costs which could also help improve growth in the industry.

Anther important point I want to make with regards to people receiving benefits is that people on here and in general I guess seem to think that morale maintenance doesn't exist along with nutritional maintenance, leisure time is not not necessarily a luxury, it's important to maintaining a balanced healthy life and society, and the government do take that into consideration when benefits are applied.
 
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edscdk said:
if you increase minimum wage you increase inflation, you also make it more likley stuff will be outsourced...... so you get more people on benefits now needing £19k a year to have the same life style...
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Why exactly would inflation increase?.

You also seem to be forgetting that we get inflation, regardless as to if we have a minimum wage, you do know inflation exists globally in nations without NMW laws?.

It's expanding the money supply which is a greater cause of inflation (which I may add, most workers haven't had a rise to cover them for)

You don't need to increase prices of goods as a result of increased wages at the bottom, look at the total income distribution statistics in the UK & you will see quite clearly a minor reduction in wages at the very top could easily pay for an increase in the bottom.

To base cost to create a item, or provide a service is a combination of a number of factors, wages are only one of them - what I'm suggesting is changing the distribution of those wages to even out the playing field (taking a few percent off the top & putting it on the bottom).

Hatter The Mad said:
If you upped the minimum wage, people would lose their jobs. That's a non starter I think.
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A company which can't afford to pay it's staff enough to live on, should go bust & it's customer go to a company with a more balanced wage system.

That's capitalism yo, the state covering the wages is the biggest case of (corporate) welfare I can think of.

You make it sound like most businesses can't afford to increase the wages of the bottom earners by a few grand a year - rubbish, any business that can't handle a minor increase in wages (which they would benefit from by having a increase in sales due to the people of the UK having an increased disposable income) doesn't deserve to be in business in the UK.
 
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elmarko1234 said:
Why exactly would inflation increase?.

You also seem to be forgetting that we get inflation, regardless as to if we have a minimum wage, you do know inflation exists globally in nations without NMW laws?.

It's expanding the money supply which is a greater cause of inflation (which I may add, most workers haven't had a rise to cover them for)

You don't need to increase prices of goods as a result of increased wages at the bottom, look at the total income distribution statistics in the UK & you will see quite clearly a minor reduction in wages at the very top could easily pay for an increase in the bottom.

To base cost to create a item, or provide a service is a combination of a number of factors, wages are only one of them - what I'm suggesting is changing the distribution of those wages to even out the playing field (taking a few percent off the top & putting it on the bottom).

A company which can't afford to pay it's staff enough to live on, should go bust & it's customer go to a company with a more balanced wage system.

That's capitalism yo, the state covering the wages is the biggest case of (corporate) welfare I can think of.

You make it sound like most businesses can't afford to increase the wages of the bottom earners by a few grand a year - rubbish, any business that can't handle a minor increase in wages (which they would benefit from by having a increase in sales due to the people of the UK having an increased disposable income) doesn't deserve to be in business in the UK.
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:) nicely put

apparently the differences in wages between the wealthy and the poor have doubled since the 70s. this massive inequality will hit a point where the poor dont see the benefit of working and you will either have mass unemployment or mass riots.
 
Castiel said:
It wouldn't necessarily.....Wealth redistribution doesn't create inflation, increasing the money supply does. Increasing the NMW would not effect inflation that much if it is coupled with tax reform.
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Exactly, what I'm proposing is balancing wages, thus resulting in no increase in the cost to create goods (which isn't even inflation anyway).

The costs of items are not placed to suit the spending power of the people, if that was true everything would be half the price to enable the current economic inactive population (who are living on the breadline) to join the economic party.
 
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