Living Wage?

[mushroom25]

an increase in the minimum wage announced, although needs to be set against cuts in benefits payments.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33437115

A living wage?

[mikey4444]

Its social engineering Naomi. To discourage young people from having children at ages of 16,17 18, etc is one thing. But to say to people that they should consider waiting until after the age of 25 is quite another. My mother had myself and a younger brother before she was 25. I expect there are many more here on AB that have a similar story.

[naomi24]

Mikey, I know few young couples buying their first house who don't delay having children until they're a bit older. Conversely, I'm aware of several who aren't trying to buy their own house and don't even think about when to have children. They just have them when they come along because someone else will foot the bill.

[ummmm]

Naomi...you can be such a snob at times.

[naomi24]

If I'm a snob I'm a hardworking snob who has never been a scrounger. I'm happy with that.

[mikey4444]

Fight, Fight !

[ummmm]

And young parents can also be hardworking, as was I.

Getting on the housing ladder is partly luck, not just hard work.

[ichkeria]

Nothing has actually changed for the benefit of the so called working poor here. The minimum wage has been renamed and denied to the under 25s
Meanwhile it will rise to a level it would have probably have risen to anyway without the announcement and many people will see the rise more than matched by the tax credit cuts
I can only assume Mr Osborne is using the fact that Lanour is in disarray - and Mr Balls out of the Commons - to take the *** on a grand scale

[gina32]

But will he still be in office in 2020????

[mikey4444]

ichkeria...you have hit the nail on the head ! Well said !

[naomi24]

ummmm, No one is saying that some young parents don't work hard - but I am saying that many don't because benefits are there to support them. I do know some who have got on to the housing ladder through luck when their parents have paid their deposit, for example. For others, hard work is the only option.

[naomi24]

I don't understand why Mikey et al appear to WANT to pay to keep people who have children they can't afford to keep or for people who don't want to work. Can someone explain that please?

[mikey4444]

Naomi...I don't.

I am on record as saying, many times on AB, that I deplore the lazy and feckless. But the people that are going to be affected by proposals in the Budget are mostly the working poor, not the layabouts. The working poor are exactly the people that we should be applauding, the ones that go out to work but get paid so badly, that some support is needed.

That is why WTCs and CTCs were introduced in the first place. By making cuts in these benefits, without first raising the Minimum Wage, will only encourage people not to work, or not to work so many hours.

Osborne could have a much better stab at this problem, by raising the minimum wage by a substantial amount, but instead he has seen it necessary to introduce this new, so-called "living wage" which will not have the same desired result at all. To repeat yet again, its smoke and mirrors.

[naomi24]

Mikey, it's more complex than that. Many of what you call the 'working poor' work only 16 hours a week because any more than that affects their benefits. It has to stop.

[Svejk]

And, interestingly, Naomi, it also affects the employers NI contributions. Hence they're getting rid of full time staff and replacing them with part timers.
There's been an unholy alliance between the Labour party and the big corporations for a long time now.

[vetuste_ennemi]

Why is a legally mandated minimum wage a good thing (which seems to be the unchallenged assumption of the contributors to this thread)?
If the premise is that government can reduce/alleviate/abolish poverty by fiat then why stick at £9 per hour. Why not £15, £20 or £50?

[Svejk]

I agree with you, vestuti. I don't think the government should have any say in peoples' wages.
I suppose Labour had to introduce it when they flooded the country with the peasantry of E.Europe or we would have had total carnage in the work market.

[ladybirder]

Naomi @ 14.20 is quite right. Two people I know who both employ a few staff, some part time, have had instances where more hours have been offered and refused because it would take them over 16 hours and they would lose their benefits. They'd rather get it from the tax payer than earn it, much to the annoyance of other staff and their employers.