minimum wage

[flashpig]

What would happen if the minimum wage were to increase to �6.50.

My girlfriend last year worked for �6.50, just a menial job so that doesn't seem an unreasonably large sum, but I have always worked at minimum wage, and thankfully, with student loans and parents handouts (bloody students) I have never had to actually live solely on �4.85. However, I have often felt that my employers could afford more than that, especially when working for large chains.

In one place I was working at a leisurely pace for long hours (although they were antisocial hours, it was still a good job) so didn't feel I deserved any more than minimum. I could earn a decent amount because the hours were long and I didn't come home feeling like my back had been broken.

Then another company bought the place and reduced everybodies hours to the point where it wasn't worth coming in to work, then with enough people quit, merged the jobs of about 3 people into 1, so that it was almost impossible to feel you were doing a good service. Then they increased the prices, and still the jobs pay minimum wage.

Hectic work that you can't feel proud of, with no ladder to climb, that are antisocial hours, and so few hours that it's impossible to live off it anymore, and the income (or whatever you call it in business) increased(!)

The thing is, the company wasn't making a loss to begin with, but they must be making a fortune now,  they can afford �6.50. They are just miserly (and not only that, relying on the warped loyalty of the few staff left and customers to keep patronising and working for them). But it wouldn't be so bad if the pay increased to reflect the increased workload, even a teeny bit (�6.50). But they wouldn't do it unless forced, despite the fact that they could.

Sorry about all this ranting (or whining)- consider it Case Study 1.

What would happen if �6.50 was minimum wage?

�6.50+?

help

  

Written Statement?

[twiglet4frog]

all i know is that if u want to be able to pay staff more money u need to make more money which means u have to charge more money to customers. therefore things cost more money and the people that have the extra wage find that they still cant afford as much as everything to buy got more expensive. Not a good example but take a look at say petrol being the goods and your wages. When minimum wage was started and was �4 petrol cost 60p a litre, quite expensive, but now minimum wage has gone up to over �5 but instead of thinking, wow i can buy loads of petrol now, u find petrol is 90p a litre!

[flashpig]

Th cost of petrol is quite indepndant to minimum wage, if the news is to go by. It's somthing to do with 'turmoil in the middle east' raising the 'cost per barrel' although how this works out in pence per litre i'm not sure.

[twiglet4frog]

i wasnt saying it was because of it, i was using it as an example that no matter how much more the minimum wage becomes, the things we need to buy, e.g petrol house prices etc also go up

[flashpig]

Ah, but with this example, minimum wage has risen only by a quarter, while the price of petrol has risen by a half. Surely the rise in minimum wage should reflect this rise in prices, but, as employrs I have worked with have followed the law, in that they only pay the minimum, as of Oct 1st each year it goes up only by what it must, rather than what it should.

Sorry... not to dismis your answers, but I was expecting great cries of "but there will be phenominal redundancies!" and "planes will be dropping from the skies!" or some businss student talking to me about trends in markets, though I know nothing about this stuff - obviously - , or "the managers of each company could probably afford it".

To be honest, I believe the latter is the case, but I wanted a view from somon who doesn't share my opinion. At some point thi issue will b deemed relevant to discuss and I will read the Mail or the Telegraph and be informed of the other side, but, well, enough people must believe in it, and people have reasons for believing what they believe, I just want to see it from th other side.