Living Wage 2020... is it right?

[Spacedeck]

Actually your wrong, I am living proof that you can do well without good grades.

I'm not saying you have to have good grades to be a success, but the chances of being a success are far more likely with better grades. It also depends highly on yourself as an individual and your environment. Someone without good grades has a better chance of more progression in life, if they have more confidence within themselves. Also, finding a job at the right company which you can progress in, also is another factor of people being able to become more successful.

It doesn't always just boil down to the grades you got but many other factors also help.

 

[moon man]

im doing a trained monkey type job here in cornwall ,mainly because im mortgage free but I know my employer will have to increase a lot of wages as even the line leaders are on only £8 an hour(this is why many of us stay on the bottom of the ladder) ,agency will be catching up.
I love living here but wages are terrible ,this might shake things up a bit

 

[esoteric]

Forget about job value for a moment.

The living wage, aka how much it costs to live in this country per hour is £7.85. By 2020 it will be over £9. People will be getting paid the minimum it costs to live in this country.

How can people have a problem with this?

No one's job will have devalued, just your sense of entitlement.

OP is a skilled IT worker, worth is wage packet. Feels his job will be devalued when these unskilled NWM workers get a free £3 pay rise. My brother is unskilled and gets paid between £9 and £10 for working in a call centre. Your job won't devalue, it's already undervalued and your employer is paying what they think your job is worth, and you've been okay with this because your sitting at X amount over the legal minimum of £6.50. Now the bar has moved to where it always should have been and you've been made to realize your situation. That pesky NWM tricking everyone into a false of security and self-worth.

 

[dowie]

How can people have a problem with this?

No one's job will have devalued, just your sense of entitlement.

that seems to be the problem people have with it - entitlement issues/envy

omg I was significantly better off than poor people now I'm only moderately better off than poor people

 

[StriderX]

Worthless tactic, i'm sure it will go down well with the vogue conservatives, but ultimately id just forces businesses to ignore it, ever so easily too since there's always a supply of <25s.

Its not the golden egg people think it is.

 

[Telecaster]

lol @ the propaganda of changing the "minimum wage" to calling it a "living wage", how does he get away with this ****?

Like all of a sudden people on £6.50 will have a massive surge in their standard of living from a 70p p/h wage rise.

I welcome any rise in the minimum wage, but let's not kid ourselves that it's suddenly become something totally different because one bloke says it is, I could start telling everyone the moon is made of cheese tomorrow, doesn't make it true.

 

[dowie]

lol @ the propaganda of changing the "minimum wage" to calling it a "living wage", how does he get away with this ****?

Like all of a sudden people on £6.50 will have a massive surge in their standard of living from a 70p p/h wage rise.

the probably would if they were careful with spending

this is the living wage, or at least what the term referred to prior to this budget

http://www.livingwage.org.uk/what-living-wage

An hourly rate set independently and updated annually
The Living Wage is calculated according to the basic cost of living in the UK
The current UK Living Wage is £7.85 an hour
The current London Living Wage is £9.15 an hour

for people outside London the recent government 'living wage' will likely match that living wage... the re-branding isn't necessarily unjustified

 

[Telecaster]

tfor people outside London the recent government 'living wage' will likely match that living wage... the re-branding isn't necessarily unjustified

Current rise in min wage is to £7.20 p/h, still too far short of the current living wage to suddenly decide to re-brand it because you feel like it.

 

[dowie]

yes but when we're not living in fantasy land you have to phase things like this in, not expect a sudden hike overnight

 

[Freakbro]

that seems to be the problem people have with it - entitlement issues/envy

omg I was significantly better off than poor people now I'm only moderately better off than poor people

Sorry, but I'm still finding that such a silly thing to say. Not that this affects me in any way, so I'm not arguing against it from a position of 'envy' but if you were getting £10 / hr and someone else was getting £6.50 that is a reflection that your job requires more skill or has more responsibility.

Now the other person is getting £9 / hour and you're now on £11 / hr where is the same acknowledgement in the different skills/responsibilities between the two jobs?

I absolutely applaud the rise people will be getting, it's fantastic but I still see it as devaluing the worth of the other jobs if they don't get a commensurate wage rise.

To put things in context with myself, every year our staff get a % wage rise (the only benefit of being close to NMW rates ) but for the management, which includes me, I alternate between a % rise or the same absolute rise in p / hr, so that the gap between their and our wage doesn't keep increasing exponentially. We in the management don't need it as much as the junior staff, so I don't give it to us. This year was an absolute rise, so the staff got ~5%, management ~2.2%

 

[StriderX]

yes but when we're not living in fantasy land you have to phase things like this in, not expect a sudden hike overnight

Really... a tier'd system only gives an advantage to business, why must 18 year old's be paid less than 25 year old's?

Also, let's be frank business will always find a way to not pay it.

 

[dowie]

Sorry, but I'm still finding that such a silly thing to say. Not that this affects me in any way, so I'm not arguing against it from a position of 'envy' but if you were getting £10 / hr and someone else was getting £6.50 that is a reflection that your job requires more skill or has more responsibility.

Now the other person is getting £9 / hour and you're now on £11 / hr where is the same acknowledgement in the different skills/responsibilities between the two jobs?

what does it matter, it doesn't affect you directly - the only factors are irrelevant ones such as envy, status anxiety, sense of entitlement etc..

I absolutely applaud the rise people will be getting, it's fantastic but I still see it as devaluing the worth of the other jobs if they don't get a commensurate wage rise.

no it doesn't, unless there is a significant rise in inflation as a result (unlikely) then a burger flipper getting more so there is less relative difference between him and an IT person has no impact in terms of devaluing the IT person's job... other than in your own head if you're suffering from status anxiety etc..

 

[Telecaster]

but if you were getting £10 / hr and someone else was getting £6.50 that is a reflection that your job requires more skill or has more responsibility.

Now the other person is getting £9 / hour and you're now on £11 / hr where is the same acknowledgement in the different skills/responsibilities between the two jobs?

Because they were getting underpaid.

Your wages aren't calculated based on how much more you should earn than the povs. Perhaps a lot of people are over valuing their roles lol.

 

[dowie]

Really... a tier'd system only gives an advantage to business, why must 18 year old's be paid less than 25 year old's?

Also, let's be frank business will always find a way to not pay it.

that has got nothing to do with my comment regarding why they can't suddenly hike the level of the minimum wage

FWIW I think the 18 yr olds being paid less than 25 yr olds is unfair, but that is a different subject

 

[Caged]

the probably would if they were careful with spending

this is the living wage, or at least what the term referred to prior to this budget

http://www.livingwage.org.uk/what-living-wage



for people outside London the recent government 'living wage' will likely match that living wage... the re-branding isn't necessarily unjustified

The Living Wage was calculated before the tax credits were taken away.

 

[Telecaster]

As expected:

"George Osborne’s new “living wage” will fail to compensate low-income workers for the £12bn cuts in the welfare budget, some of which will leave tax credit claimants up to £1,000 a year worse off, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies."

Give with one, take with the other.

 

[esoteric]

£10 / hr and someone else was getting £6.50 that is a reflection that your job requires more skill or has more responsibility

The problem here again is value and self-worth being based off of NWM. Now that the bar is moving your self-worth has been shaken. People were previously underpaid at £6.50, the others were paid £2.15 over what everyone should have been paid. Everyone was under valued.

Also, everyone is talking about what the NLW will be in 2020, £9, against there wages NOW, and feeling hard done by it. If your wage has not increased by 2020 anyway, have words with your employer.

 

[Haggisman]

what does it matter, it doesn't affect you directly - the only factors are irrelevant ones such as envy, status anxiety, sense of entitlement etc..

no it doesn't, unless there is a significant rise in inflation as a result (unlikely) then a burger flipper getting more so there is less relative difference between him and an IT person has no impact in terms of devaluing the IT person's job... other than in your own head if you're suffering from status anxiety etc..

It means there's no longer any incentive to spend time and money on qualifications & training which will never pay for themselves

Also, everyone is talking about what the NLW will be in 2020, £9, against there wages NOW, and feeling hard done by it. If your wage has not increased by 2020 anyway, have words with your employer.

You mean like people in the op who work in the public sector?

 

[dowie]

It means there's no longer any incentive to spend time and money on qualifications & training which will never pay for themselves

no it really doesn't...

 

[anything I don't mind]

Because private companies would simply pay less money (e.g. if it was minimum/living wage + £1k they would simply drop the salary for new employees to be minimum/living wage). The employee would take home the same or more money because of the tax incentive and the tax payer has therefore subsidised a reduced cost to the company.



So by that definition in 2020 the OP's job is "correctly" valued at about the same as someone on minimum/living wage because their employers have set the wage at the same amount... and the OP should be happy that he's being paid the right amount for the value of the job.

When in actual fact it simply shows that the wage is just a monetary amount that the employer can get away with charging. It doesn't define the value of the job at all. It simply defines the salary paid.

You have it backwards, the employer does not pay the taxation. A reduction in taxation is not a subsidy. That is like saying me not taking £10 per month from you is giving your employer a subsidy. There would be no reason for the employee to get above minimum wage until the point where they earned more than they would be taxed at minimum wage. The employer would have no reason to pay the employee any more than minimum wage to the same level because then the employee would have to pay tax and end up earning less. It would make no difference to the employer, unlike raising the minimum wage.