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UK minimum wage, damning with faint increases?
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 8:22 pm
by Gob
Minimum wage to rise by 11p (17c) an hour
The national minimum wage will rise by 11p to £6.19 ($9.84) an hour in October, the government has announced.
This is a rise of 1.8% from the current level, which is lower than the current inflation rate.
The minimum wage for workers aged under 21 will be unchanged - a decision that has been criticised by union leaders.
The minimum wage was introduced in 1999 at £3.60 an hour for adults. The level is recommended each year by the Low Pay Commission.
The changes to be made in October echo the recommendations made by the commission.
The cost of living rose by 3.6% in the year to January, according to the most recent Consumer Prices Index (CPI) measure of inflation.
However, October's rise in the minimum wage is much more in line with the average increase in earnings, which rose by 1.4% over the year to January, the latest official statistics show.
The freeze in the minimum wage for those aged under 21 means that from 1 October:
The rate for 18 to 20-year-olds will remain at £4.98 ($7.91) an hour
The rate for 16 and 17-year-olds will remain at £3.68 ($5.84) an hour
However, the rate for apprentices will rise by 5p to £2.65 ($4.21) an hour
Business Secretary Vince Cable said that the decision marked the "right balance between pay and jobs".
"In these tough times freezing the youth rates has been a very hard decision - but raising the youth rates would have been of little value to young people if it meant it was harder for them to get a job in the long run," he said.
However, TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said the minimum wage should have kept pace with inflation.
"It is wrong to deny young people an increase this year, as there is no evidence that the minimum wage has had an adverse impact on jobs," he said.
"The reason why firms have not been hiring enough new workers is because they lack confidence in this government's ability to set the UK on course for a sound economic recovery. There is now a real danger that young people will view minimum wage work as exploitative."
David Norgrove, who chaired the Low Pay Commission's discussions, said the decision was unanimous, despite all the economic uncertainties and the different pressures on low-paid workers and businesses.
John Longworth, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said the employers' organisation was "disappointed" with the decision to raise the minimum wage.
"While the pressures of inflation are hurting many people, especially the lowest-paid, this decision adds significantly to the cost of doing business, and feeds wage inflation at higher levels," he said.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17429325
$ =$US Aus $ is worth slightly more.
Re: UK minimum wage, damning with faint increases?
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 8:25 pm
by The Hen
Our minimum wages top out at more than the UK's. But then our cost of living is higher.
For junior employees, the minimum rates are:
Under 16 years of age $5.71
At 16 years of age $7.34
At 17 years of age $8.96
At 18 years of age $10.59
At 19 years of age $12.80
At 20 years of age $15.15.
For apprentices, the rates are:
Year 1 of apprenticeship $9.93
Year 2 of apprenticeship $11.74
Year 3 of apprenticeship $14.45
Year 4 of apprenticeship $17.16.
Re: UK minimum wage, damning with faint increases?
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 9:44 pm
by dales
There are some here who believe there should NOT be a minimum wage.
I am NOT one of them.
Re: UK minimum wage, damning with faint increases?
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 9:52 pm
by Lord Jim
However, the rate for apprentices will rise by 5p to £2.65 ($4.21) an hour
What are they calling an "apprentice" and why do they get so much less than anyone else?
Re: UK minimum wage, damning with faint increases?
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 10:02 pm
by The Hen
Bloody over paid mice.
Re: UK minimum wage, damning with faint increases?
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 10:15 pm
by Sue U
Re: UK minimum wage, damning with faint increases?
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:40 pm
by Gob
Here you go Jim.
Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a structured competency based set of skills. Apprenticeships ranged from craft occupations or trades to those seeking a professional license to practice in a regulated profession. Apprentices (or in early modern usage "prentices") or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships. Most of their training is done while working for an employer who helps the apprentices learn their trade or profession, in exchange for their continuing labor for an agreed period after they have achieved measurable competencies. For more advance apprenticeships, theoretical education was also involved, formally via the workplace and also by attending a local technical college vocational schools or university while still being paid by the employer often over a period of 4-6 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apprenticeship
I was an indentured heavy industry apprentice, four years skills training on the job, in a place like this;
Re: UK minimum wage, damning with faint increases?
Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2012 1:15 pm
by rubato
I'm surprised about the number of sub-minimum wage exceptions, and how much less they are allowed to pay. In Germany apprentices get paid rather well often including a University-level education in their fields, at lest in technical areas.
yrs,
rubato
Re: UK minimum wage, damning with faint increases?
Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2012 2:04 pm
by dgs49
No rational economist or business person would ever support the existence of a minimum wage law. It is economic stupidity on steroids.
The arguments against it are so obvious and so well-known, they hardly bear repeating.
Anytime an outside force intervenes and compels prices that are higher than would be determined by free market forces, the results are the same: Consumers use less of it, they seek to meet their requirements through different means, and a black market emerges. Doesn't matter whether you are talking about coffee, steel, or common labor.
Legislators realize this (they are merely pandering to stupid voters), and they are always careful not to raise the MW above the economic minimum wage, so the harm will be minimized. Stupid Liberals (sorry for the redundancy) like to point out areas where the MW increases and there is no loss of jobs in fast food joints. What they fail to recognize is that in those areas, the economic MW has already surpassed the legal MW, so there is no effect. Look at less prosperous and less costly areas, and employees at the bottom of the heap lose jobs by the thousands.
Of course, putting our "yoots" back to work is unimportant when winning the votes of idiots is at stake. Witness the phony outrage when Newt suggested this year that a couple of the $100k/yr janitors in the New York City schools could be replaced by students who need a fucking P.T. job. Oh, the horrors of child exploitation!
There is no answer to the most obvious question: If a Minimum Wage of $10 is good, why is a Minimum Wage of $15 not better? $20. Why stop there? WE CAN STAMP OUT POVERTY!!! YIPPEEEE!!!
Re: UK minimum wage, damning with faint increases?
Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2012 4:47 pm
by Grim Reaper
dgs49 wrote:No rational economist or business person would ever support the existence of a minimum wage law. It is economic stupidity on steroids.
You mean the people who have a vested interest in paying people as little as possible? Which is why the government supports it.
And it's not economic stupidity. It's the only thing keeping the economy going. If you pay people less, they have less money with which to buy the stuff they worked to make. It's simple common sense that eludes you yet again.
Re: UK minimum wage, damning with faint increases?
Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 12:50 pm
by rubato
dgs49 wrote:No rational economist or business person would ever support the existence of a minimum wage law. It is economic stupidity on steroids.
... "
All of the G-20 who have less poverty than we do have a minimum wage which is generally higher.
An employee represents a minimum cost to support. When an employer pays less than this amount the difference is made up by taxes on everyone else or the physical deterioration of the human asset.
Maybe you should start your own country where you repeat experiments which have been tried, failed and abandoned by the first world? We'll see how you do.
yrs,
rubato
Re: UK minimum wage, damning with faint increases?
Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 8:47 pm
by Gob
Interesting Dave, you pay the same sort of level minimum wage as Greece and Spain. They are going bust too.
Edited to add;
George Osborne is cutting the tax rate for earnings over £150,000, saying in his Budget it raised "next to nothing".
He is also going to raise the threshold at which people start paying tax to £9,205, leaving millions of working people over £200 better off.
But 4.4 million pensioners will be worse off next year when age-related tax allowances are frozen and axed.
Mr Osborne said the Budget "rewards work" but Labour Leader Ed Miliband labelled it a "millionaire's Budget".
BBC political editor Nick Robinson said the chancellor had taken a huge gamble with changes that might not shape the economy, but would shape politics in the months ahead.
Other key measures outlined by Mr Osborne were:
Corporation tax to fall from 26% to 24% in April 2012, down to 22% in 2014
New 7% stamp duty rate for properties worth more than £2m and a 15% rate for £2m homes bought through companies
Child benefit cuts to be phased in for families with at least one parent earning £50,000, and axed for those on £60,000
UK growth forecast raised slightly to 0.8% and borrowing to be £1bn less than previously forecast
Tobacco duties to rise by 5% above inflation from 1800 GMT - equivalent to 37p on the price of a packet of cigarettes.
Fuel duty rise of 3p a litre to go ahead as planned
State pension age to be automatically reviewed, to ensure it keeps pace with life expectancy.
VAT loopholes - from hot food bought in supermarkets to static caravans and sports nutrition drinks - to be closed.
Delivering his third Budget, he said: "This Budget supports working families and helps those looking for work.
