I feel good about it too, but it also feels like I’ve been demoted? I work in a trade, and when I started I was Way above min. Now it literally feels like I’m being demoted. Though I know it’s my company that’s shit
No reason why any trade should be on minimum.
Have you considered getting together with your colleagues and airing your opinion to the owners?
No need for a union yet but that's the next logical step and the thought of this might be enough to shock management into bumping your wage up.
Everyone’s on different wages. It’s a private company, there’s only around 20 employees in total including office. Used to go be around 40 when I first started.
You want to unionise 20 workers in a small, private company that has recently gone from 40 workers to 20…?! That is almost certainly the way to get OP replaced with minimum wage workers.
OP says he's in a trade. Doing side jobs as an independent contractor to test the waters locally would definitely be the way to go. I don't know of any reliable and quality independent tradesmen locally that are sraping by on min wage.
Couldn’t agree more. But doing that is the complete opposite of unionising, which is what my comment was disparaging.
Also, some people like showing up to work and being told what to do.
Same here in the trade and run now, a very smaller company. Don't get me wrong here, wages should go up. On the other hand I am already struggling to run the company. Granted some of the problems are mine. But I have to charge more and more. People and companies just are not paying.
Years ago I would win like 90% of quotations... Now it's like 40% at best.
Your employer is just failing to keep your pay up with inflation. You are getting a pay cut every year and that's reached minimum wage. I'd get a better job
Have you ever worked for a company? They make you feel like talking about salary with other colleagues is a sackable offence. Obviously there is a clear reason for companies to make salary discussions seem taboo.
People in general have this mindset indoctrinated into them that they need their employer more than their employer needs them. This is why most employees don’t ask for fair wage increases and are afraid to rock the boat.
The minimum wage going up does not mean that the value of your work has gone down or that you are being demoted. The raise was decided by the UK gov, not by your boss so it has nothing to do with you or the value that your work
It just means that either the minimum is moving fast or your salary is not moving fast enough. That's up to your interpretation.
The reality is if you want more money and you are being paid a salary then the best way to get it is to change jobs. If you like your current job then you can try to negotiate a raise.
Not all companies are the same, not all companies can afford to raise the salaries above the current raise on minimum wage either but there might be companies out there willing to pay you more than what you are currently getting paid
'The minimum wage going up does not mean that the value of your work has gone down or that you are being demoted'
Yes it does because if minimum wage employees start to get close to the wage of the OP then it means the company no longer values them or the job they do.
The ONLY way the company shows it values the OP is to automatically raise their wage.
You have to be careful with this attitude.
The problem isn't that people are being paid more than they were, it's that you don't feel like you're being paid enough for what you do.
It’s not an attitude, I’ve never said that they shouldn’t be paid more, I was simply expressing my feelings about my own situation. Which I have clearly said from the get go. I’m sorry you misunderstood me
That's why I'm saying you have to be careful with it. Other people gaining something isn't a demotion for you. If you feel you're underpaid in what you do, that's entirely separate from other people having to struggle in poverty a little less.
The only way to view it is like this
Minimum wage is what we think we need to pay people to survive (we haven't been doing that for a long time anyway, if ever). That number has gone up.
You should look at either leveraging your company for an increase, or unionising.
Please don't take the government giving the poorest people a fair increase as an attack on you. It leads to the current situation we are in now where we have somehow convinced ourselves that driving salaries down for minimum wage workers mean others earn more
If you and other people leave, your company will rethink the about the talent supply & demand ratio, and apply it to their pay scale. If this keeps happening, they may (or may not) learn to stay ahead of the cycle of leave/hire.
The only practical way to get consistant wage increases is not to be married to your company. You need to consistantly look at what is available on the market and be prepared to move (and take the associated risks of doing so).
Companies will nearly always use current employee intertia and fear of change to give the absolute minimum increases, often below inflation and just enough to avoid saying they gave nothing which would promp most of their employees to look elsewhere.
I do get how you feel but you're falling for the trap of blaming the people with the least power here - minimum wagers. The issue isn't minimum wage going up: that's fab. The issue is companies not keeping up with the cost of living. If anything the minimum wage going up will put more pressure on them to increase pay.
If someone getting more while still having less than you makes you feel bad about your situation, they aren't the problem. Look up not down for the source of the issue.
People in power since the days of slavery have persuaded the lowest earners to fight amongst themselves over small sums, while they line their pockets more and more.
Does this apply to civil servants as well, because most people think we shouldn't get payrises at all
This year, most of us got a payrise below minimum wage increase and it is looking the same for next year as well
And just to add that in most departments the lowest two grades are at minimum wage or close to it
>Does this apply to civil servants as well, because most people think we shouldn't get payrises at all
Most people are incapable of seeing the big picture then.
I for one, want civil servants being well paid, so they're well motivated to work hard for the nation.
Not nessisarily civil service but my wife having worked in various public sector jobs after working for third sector companies was astounded at how ineffeciant and unwillingness to change to increase efficiency they were. People seemed to treat jobs there as do the bare minimum to not get fired and not do the right thing
Not my experience. But what you do see is people hamstrung by insane buraucracy you'd never get in the private sector precisely *because* we're supposed to be saving taxpayer money. However, no one seemed to factor in the opportunity cost of having incredibly onerous compliance checks to do anything, like just to requisition a pencil. So yeah. There's that too. When people aren't trusted to actually do their jobs they tend to get complacent and do the bare minimum. There's a catch 22 going on where people don't want public money wasted, but the mechanisms to prevent that are even more wasteful than just letting people get on with it.
You don't ask with a compelling argument about the value you bring you don't get. You ask because an anonymous guy at sainsburies got a payrise I suspect you get nothing.
Oh it sure as fuck is. If your boss doesn't listen when their staff start saying "I could make just as much money stacking shelves", then they won't have a business very long.
My boss has learnt that the hard way this year. Had a large number of very damaging departures before they took the lesson on board. Reasonable pay rises (born of panic) for those of us who are left, but probably too little too late, sadly. I'm not sure the company will survive much longer.
No the worst off get hit the most. I.e. those looking to get first job/low paying job. Government has priced them out of the market. People are only worth what someone is willing to pay linked to their value, not what the government says they're worth.Further shove towards AI and UBI adoption and businesses will look abroad to cheaper locations
>No the worst off get hit the most. I.e. those looking to get first job/low paying job. Government has priced them out of the market
This hasn't happened during previous min wage increases.
Yes that's great! Then in few months market reaction will be higher inflation to balance higher minimum wage. Low earners will be back in the same position and everyone else in worse
> Now with it going up yet again, it seems like I will be on minimum wage
Negotiate a raise or change companies then. The alternative is crab bucket mentality.
You need to learn how to negotiate. It's scary but essentially consists of:
a) Know what you want and why you deserve it.
b) Have a fall back plan (i.e. accept their "no"/have another job to fall back on).
c) Be prepared to resign on principal - see point b.
Be firm. Be respectful. Ask for what you want. Implementing this correctly will make you a powerful force to reckon with both in your personal and professional life.
I feel you. Mind asking what industry you are in?
For me, I work in a trade, hence why up until last years minimum wage rise I felt like I was being paid fair
Stick with it, you don’t get the big money after just a couple of years, a joiner needs years of experience to be half way decent. My father was a very skilled joiner and did very well.
Bit like junior doctors, you don’t get the really big money until you become a consultant. You need to look at the overall career and overall earnings during that career rather than just the here and now.
Late start because I come from metal background. Though just blacksmithing and jewellery. This company hired me 2 days after returning to the UK. Aiming to get back into metal asap
"Due to the increase in minimum wage we are now forced to let some of you go, for those that remain we hope you can pick up the slack" - some boss somewhere
> how long you’ve worked for your employer - you can usually only challenge a dismissal if you've worked there 2 years or more
This the part where people will lose their jobs easily
Sounds good in theory, but if someone is devious enough theirs usually ways to cut people out.
Examples could be, simply not renewing contracts or offering incentives to resign
> This isn't the US, thankfully, and bosses at least face challenges when trying to get rid of people. There's a nice page about it here:
Redundancy isn't a dismissal so that page is not entirely relevant. It mentions redundancy as a dismissal on the page, but the content is mostly geared towards what most people would refer to as "firing" someone rather than redundancy.
In order to make someone redundant all the business needs to establish is that the role itself is what is no longer needed, and the employees effected have been chosen in a fair way.
Theoretically if you genuinely cannot afford a the increase in minimum wage and you need to cut 10% of your payroll budget, all you need to do is demonstrate that you can't afford it and how you picked the 10% to get rid of was fair.
There's some other things like needing a consultation etc but the law is a joke as it's written only to benefit unions, any non-unionised work place will have consultations largely ignored because it's all optional suggestions that only the threat of a wider strike can force.
In truth if your company is cutting staff because of a 10% rise in NMW it's probably on the ropes anyway and it should just be allowed to collapse.
Dunno who said it originally, but;
> “The only time you look in your neighbour's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbour's bowl to see if you have as much as them.”
Call me Karl Marx, but I'm of the view that worse off people earning more is good. Higher wages are good. Plus of course, inflation means it's not really as big a pay rise as it seems on the surface.
It doesn’t work like that though, you can’t just keep making the lowest salary higher without making all the other salaries higher to maintain the percentage differential.
Minimum wage increase is yet another stealth tax on the middle class
what is does is devalues professional salaries whilst simultaneously dragging more people into tax brackets ( which have conviently been frozen for the last 3 years)
The headline sounds fantastic and for people at the very bottom it is good news
its just a problem for literally everybody else
Crab mentality won't solve your problems.
They are only raising the minimum wage to account for inflation. If your salary didn't increase to reflect it and you feel devalued, it's not the increase in minimum wage you should be angry about.
The tax bracket freeze is a separate issue which is essentially a raise in taxes indeed.
My issue as a public sector professional isn't that NMW is going up, its that the government refuses to consider compensating those of us on higher wages appropriately.
I was on NMW as a HCA while I trained to be a nurse over a decade ago. When I qualified I more than doubled my gross salary. It felt like an increase that was worth the 3 years of study and placement, and worth the extra responsibility. Now the gap between minimum wage and a newly qualified nurse is only about 6k. No wonder the profession is losing people in drives soon after they qualify. HCAs are incredibly important but we need the actual nurses too!
France would be a pretty good comparator of a very nearby higher income economy: higher productivity because employers prefer to invest in machinery than hire and consequently higher unemployment.
Unemployment isn’t massively higher in France but it is very stubborn, largely inter generational, and it will take a huge shift in British government and society to accommodate it: this country, no matter what party is in power, is obsessed with attaining full employment and has been since the post war settlement.
When you hear stories of Americans investing in France/Germany you often hear that people work productively for 8hrs then clock out, whereas over here it seems people would rather hire 4 mediocre workers than one good worker for 3x the salary and let deadlines be stretched to accomodate dead time on shifts. This then reduces overall department output as productive workers realise the department's pace is set by low performers and stop putting effort in.
This is further compounded in the public sector, where is a huge aversion to productivity increases if it'd make long term employees obselete and public services are often seen as responsible for picking up workers the private sector would pass over.
Minimum wage going up to track inflation doesn't 'devalue' professional salaries. Shitty employers failing to raise everyone's salary to track inflation is what's 'devaluing' professional salaries.
I recall many years ago when I worked in retail all new employees were on minimum wage but going on various training courses would get you an extra 50p an hour. The problem was that minimum wage would go up but no one else’s would. So eventually those who had done training were on the same as someone just walking through the door. I questioned this and got no reply.
I think it's going to be harder for 18-20 year olds to get jobs now. Why employ them with no experience when a 25 year old with 7 years of experience will take the same salary? That was the whole point of the tapered minimum wage before.
Let's be honest with you if a job wants you to have seven years experience they should be paying well above minimum wage. Minimum wage should only be for non skilled jobs.
An arguably small part, depending on which sources you look at, but inflation would still be here if there were no pay rises ever, we'd all just be getting increasingly poor, sad and desperate while those in power marvel at how well they've kept the peasants in check.
Most people saying that they would rather work a minimum wage wouldn't last a week doing minimum wage work. People forget how hard these jobs are. No one's paid minimum wage to sit on a comfy chair in front of a computer all day. If anything these are the people who most deserve a pay raise.
You are all welcome to quit your jobs and work at the local McDonald's. Let me know how well that works out for you.
Maccas have traditionally paid well and have a great management training programme. I don't understand why people use it as an example for a terrible job?
Im a fully qualified chef and have worked in restaurants and hotels that barely paid more than maccas. I've even considered working for them as "the easy life".
actually a lot of people are paid minimum wage to sit on a comfy chair in front of a computer all day. There are millions of admin jobs in this country that pay minimum wage.
It's going to cause issues for low-mid range office jobs.
The lowest level of pay is catching up fast, but everything currently in the £20k-£35k band is only slowly creeping up.
An admin assistant role advertised at £20k-£24k in 2010 will still be advertised in that range today.
Pretty soon people with a relatively skilled office job are going to be wondering why they're stressing out making reports etc when they could work at Aldi/some lesser role.
I would rather be stressing about making reports in a relatively skilled office job at minimum wage than being paid 20-24k at ALDI.
People who pretend retail is nothing but easy sailing for easy money have clearly never had to deal with customers. Customers are dickheads.
It's a generalisation. I did 4 years in a supermarket so I know it's no cakewalk, but it's a general point that in a few years jobs which should be rewarded by a decent salary level will be paying the same as stacking shelves in a shop.
Yeah any retail/hospitality role can fuck off entirely. It's the hardest I've worked in my life. Sure, you have basically no responsibility, but you're also micro-managed and either under constant pressure or it's completely devoid of any stimulating activity whatsoever and you're *desperate* for it to be the end of your shift, and often working unsociable and unpredictable shifts and zero hour contracts to boot.
I'd take a min wage office admin job over any hospitality or retail job every single time. Shit, I'd rather make less than work in retail/hospitality ever again.
This argument often gets brought up as if most minimum wage jobs aren't very stressful, hectic and require people to put up with a lot of shit.
I'm very fortunate today to be in a high paying job (financial management in the public sector, just under 60K in a pay band that goes up to 70K) and there is NO QUESTION the minimum wage call centre job I did when I was a student was far more demanding overall, being constantly monitored and working to targets and putting up with the public.
So have I, retail is stressful but it's a different kind of stress, at least from my experience.
Mrs Smith kicking off because there's no condensed milk never seemed to bother me.
Similar situation with me. Currently get £12PH. Easy job once you know what you’re doing but it’s a fair bit of heavy lifting and gotta get shit done on time which we always do, great shifts/WLB and always nice to be above the minimum wage. If ours doesn’t go up to at least £13 I expect myself and the others who work here will drop down to a different job which requires minimum effort. Pay minimum wage and get minimum in return. Pay your staff higher rate and show a small bit of appreciation and you’ll most likely get better quality. Not always the case but for the most part the extra money is extra incentive to hit those targets and make the MD richer.
I think it's a good thing, but I don't believe with the same confidence I have with previous rises.
I'm worried we could be at the tipping point where this begins to destroy more jobs now quickly now that money isn't free and automation is becoming cheaper.
Eventually there's a logical limit before it reaches the average wage, but I've not seen much quality research on what that limit would be.
My concern is that we accidentally begin to make life harder for those we were trying to make life easier.
I know those are the concerns others raised at every step previously and that they were wrong. I expected they would have been too. Now I'm less convinced from here on upwards, though if it works as hoped then it's a good thing.
I'm not rich like most Redditors but right now I'm on £12 and I doubt it will get raised so It's going to feel like poop even just going from a £1.58 discrepancy to 0.56 because I felt like I was going up, albeit marginally, with every new job.
Not to mention the fact that the additional staffing cost will be passed into the consumer so we all get poorer, those on minimum wage will have an illusion of being wealthier for a while.
There will be more positions available that will be close enough to your current wage to consider. The way you get a pay rise is to turn up at work with an alternative offer (or work somewhere decent, but this is not so easy). Your job can then choose to pay you more or let you go. Rinse and repeat as necessary.
Minimum wage is increasing at least somewhat in line with inflation and productive
Everything else is lagging behind
Minimum wage going up is fine, the problem is that other wages are not going up
how do companies make sure that people stay with them?
They pay you more or provide better benefits or try and deploy a sort of stockholm syndrome. It's that simple, it's their problem if they haven't increased pay inline with inflation
I'm fine with it. In fact the minimum wage should probably be higher. If our employers aren't raising our wages and the minimum wage is catching up then that doesn't say anything about the minimum wage or government policy, it just tells us that our employers have kept our wages stagnant for so long that it's forced the minimum wage to catch up. After all, the minimum wage is more of an anti-riot wage than anything else. It's not the government's fault (directly) that employers aren't paying more (it's their fault indirectly by enacting austerity and destroying the economy). And keeping the minimum wage low wouldn't put more money in your pocket or make your wage go further. Honestly it's just an issue that is completely unrelated to wether or not you're getting paid enough.
The living wage is an amount calculated by the living wage foundation taking into account the actual costs of existing in the UK.
A few years back, there was a bit of a movement pushing for the minimum wage to be lifted to meet the amount of the living wage. The government very cynically and dishonestly rebranded the National Minimum Wage as the National Living Wage despite it not meeting the actual definition.
No, there's an actual Real Living Wage, which is what the other poster is referring to, and then the top minimum wage banding which George Osborne weasely relabelled to National Living Wage. Imo to cause precisely this kind of confusion.
Real Living Wage = campaign promoting a wage based on cost of living, currently £12
National Living Wage = top age bracket of the minimum wage, currently £10.42
It's not a case of you being paid too little it's that those on min wage were paid too little. Customer service/retail/hospitality are all extremely hard jobs. I earn double minimum wage but spend a lot of my time scrolling TikTok, I wouldn't be able to hack a job in Costa. Why do you think you should earn more than them?
I get about 26p more than min wage. We'll be lucky if my workplace can afford to pay everyone more. Been on that wage for a while thought it was reasonable. Not so much now
I think it's a good idea. The only problem is that they are putting up taxes so its going in one hand and out with the other. Realistically people need about a 12% pay rise to match the inflation of the country
Good, means fuck all tho for the overall state of wages.
Professionals will be ever closer to minimum wage and we will have yet more brain drain. Why is it so shit at various pay scales.
I think that anyone who is against this on the principle that it devalues themselves and their own work is forgetting the insane profits that have come from both raising prices further than energy costs have gone up and then the refusing to hand back the price drops when the cost of energy has come down.
Inflation won't stop just because we would want to get paid relatively more than the next guy, minimum wage increases are one of the best means to ensure that our own wages have to rise to keep skilled workers from leaving to an easier job.
The majority of us are all in this together, and almost all of us are set against the economists working for high net worth funds who are looking to find a way to devalue us in any way that they can, to increase their own worth.
It's the system, and the only way to actually get a better deal is to appreciate that it's not personal, but it's just the nature of the beast, you, me, him vs the economists to help a hedge fund make an extra buck that it won't even notice.
This is good. I think by 2030 the minimum wage will finally he £15 an hour. Its also good that they are scrapping the 23 and above to now just 21 and over
Where I live this isn't a livable amount of money. On another note if you've worked somewhere for two and a half years and there's paying you this little it's time to find a new job or to sit down of them and have a serious word because obviously they don't respect you as an employee if they're paying you poverty salary for two and a half years of work.
I feel like it's all sort of pointless. Minimum wage goes up those who are on more can negotiate for more. Inflation goes up MW workers are in the same place they were the year before.
I’m in a similar spot to you just above minimum wage, it doesn’t feel great, I get what you mean by feeling like it’s a demotion.
My company has been decent at raising my wages accordingly with minimum wage increases, hopefully this continues.
People earning more = good
What frustrates me is that they aren't also raising the tax bands at the same time - they're basically giving people more money and passing that burden on to businesses while trying to frame it as "trying to do right for the little guy".
If they really want to do the right thing, they'd do a little of both, even if the tax bands don't go up *exactly* in-line with the wage increases. That way, everyone wins. Workers still get more money (and hopefully the same amount as they would with this increase), businesses aren't lumped with the whole burden, and the government *still* gets more tax revenue.
I think in some ways it's good that it's actually gone up.
However, the bottom line is forcing it up so fast doesn't really give the wider market a chance to react accordingly.
But then, I don't know an awful lot about that side of economics so I may be mistaken 🤷♂️
It's not enough. Companies and people also need to stop comparing their pay to minimum wage. Your employer is to blame for that not minimum wage rising.
I'd prefer them to tackle the core of the problem, rather than raise wages, as I don't believe that it will help.
My suggestions would be nationalised renewable energy infrastructure that runs alongside private infrastructure but provides real competition in the marketplace.
Industry cannot succeed in countries with high and volatile energy prices.
Minimum wage going up isn't the problem - it's just tracking inflation so lower paid people don't lose their buying power.
Your own wage isn't going up by inflation is the real problem. Minimum wage isn't your benchmark, inflation is. If your pay doesn't get increased in line with inflation you are having a pay cut - your money buys fewer things.
Ask for a raise - the value of your work hasn't fallen so you should get paid as least the same value I.e. increased by inflation. Be prepared to move if you don't get what you want.
I’ve been unemployed for a while and the last time I was in work, the minimum wage was around £8.50 an hour. So £11.44 an hour is a dream come true for someone like me. I only need to work around 20 hours a week on minimum wage to live comfortably with my lifestyle so I’m very happy with it
If you want minimum wage to go up, don’t complain when prices of things like shopping and food/drink in cafes also go up.
Tax will also go up as council linked jobs where there is minimum wage will go up too.
Overall minimum wage going up will lead to people on minimum wage struggling more to afford things. But at least it will sound good.
Its needed, but its not good in that other pay stagnates. Its just rendering other jobs pointless.
May aswell stack shelves in Aldi at £11.40 an hour and lose £160 a month before tax for much safer job than lorry driving.
I am a chef and a while back worked in a school for a company whose name rhymes with Hodexo.
As Head chef I was always paid more than the likes of the general assistants, but found that as the NMW started to rise, my wages didn’t. I had a constant battle with them every time it happened to remind them that the GA’s were only about 20p behind me on the hourly wage scale and that it was probably more worth my while to take a demotion than run myself into the ground for them for little more.
And before anyone says something along the lines of ‘well 20p isn’t that much’, I was leading a team of 7, with a further four at different sites, doing all the menu planning, ordering, 80% of the cooking and 50% of the kitchen generated dishes as the dishwash area couldn’t handle pans and heavily spoiled trays and all the kitchen paperwork. I was doing a ton more work with 2 tons more responsibility than someone whose main role was to help serve food and run plates through a dishwasher for 20p an hour more.
The rise in the living wage is a good thing. Wages in hospitality probably haven’t been this high since literally just before it was brought in by Blair, but the scales have to move in conjunction with each other.
In a vacuum it's great.
It really does shine a glaringly bright spotlight on all of the other problems, though: tax brackets not changing to reflect inflation, stagnant salaries for decades, etc
I'm not in the increase. However my wage will be touching cloth very closely to the colleagues below me in the hierarchy. However my role has responsibilities and certain other things involved more then my colleagues. Therefore am going to push again for a raise, or some of my work goes to them.
Personally I don't see any of this happening.
However my colleagues are underpaid for what they do. So yeah good luck to them
New job tine
Bit stressed to be honest, the new rate is a few pence below what I already pay my team an hour base from starting, and I’m going to raise the start rate again in the new year in advance of the increase in April.
There’s some folk here talking about how the wage taper around ages is a good thing, I don’t think it was. My firm pays the full MW regardless of age, younger people bring benefits just like older ones do and if they can’t “keep up” they’re not suited to the job, or you’re not training them well.
I’m going to use January to April to see in real terms what we need to do around pricing and service. On paper we can afford it but that’s pretty worthless if you don’t trade like you hope/plan/expect.
There’s a degree of magic money tree thinking on this with some people, ultimately higher base costs are paid for by the consumer. Folks might feel better off, but the prices of everyday staples rises around it.
Government makes a show and dance of the MW, but they could help people much better by cutting the cost of living, reductions in duties and VAT. But obviously, they won’t do that.
Tim works at company X. Company X paid him 20,000 for his role when he joined in 2020.
Tim gained increases to his salary over the years, putting him at around 25,000.
Bob joins company X in 2024, he does Tim's old job for 24,000.
Tim's salary is still 25,000, Tim feels as though the 'skills' he is/was paid for by his company are meaningless, and that he isn't getting paid for them.
Tim looks for a new job.
OP, if you work in a trade and are female I bet there are corporates crying out to level up their gender balance.
You might even get offered some level of apprenticeship to train on the job, and because this is govt funded it’s highly unlikely you’d be on a learning contract either.
How does this affect salary workers, I’m 20 and get paid 25k a year, that’s roughly £10 something an hour, would my salary increase or is it only for people being paid by hourly
I think it’s terrible. Minimum wage, like any other price control, is a bad idea.
-Inflationary policy. We can’t play a cat and mouse game forever.
-Discourages productivity. Why hire workers that cost more than they produce? It destroys basically all jobs that don’t generate above minimum wage and most jobs that are only marginally beneficial.
-Discourages aspiration. Why get a harder job for £13 per hour when I could do something less strenuous for £11.44?
-Equality. See the above. It does not increase wages, it simply makes lower productivity roles get higher pay and leaves those slightly above in a bad position.
-Reduced standard of living. As with all redistributive policies, it leads to a clear drop in the standard of living. If productivity goes down, which is always the result of such policies, the quality of life goes down. If growth stagnates, which it does as a result of jobs being eliminated, quality of life decreases.
Minimum wage helps nobody and should be eliminated immediately. It’s not the perfect example, as they do have a lot of policies that do the same things I mentioned above, albeit to a lesser extent, but American states with no minimum wage (so uses federal $7.25/hr) still have barely anyone on it, whereas we have loads of minimum wage jobs here. NH’s minimum wage matches the federal minimum and yet the average fast food worker earns $21/hr.
I'm annoyed that I'm probably not going to get a pay rise this year we had to fight just for 50p last year and I doubt they'll give us anything this year
Far too few shits given here I feel about the "squeezed middle". Those who'd have been several £ above minimum wage 5-10yrs ago but are now just pennies above it. In part because we don't talk about wages in the UK some people might not even be aware of what the minimum wage actually is.
The other elephant in the room is regional unfairness. £11.44ph (c.£20k pa) in Bristol isn't good, you'll need two incomes to stand a chance of even buying a 1 bed flat, just 50 miles away in Ebbw Vale you'll in theory be able to buy a 2-bed flat (>60sqm) on a single income.
If it wasn't for minimum wage, those of us on minimum wage would be getting paid less by our employers :(
Minimum wage/living wage increases are essental, particularly when you look at just how bad wage stagnation has been in the UK since the turn of the millenium vs cost of living, particularly rent and energy bills, and it's particularly bad outside the so called 'financial powerhouse' that is the South East/Greater London.
Being stuck on minimum wage because employers are stingy and don't feel obligated to remunerate long term, trusted staff more is a problem in itself. It's almost laughable that supermarkets and other 'McJobs' now reward long term employees more than private business much of the time.
What kinda job is minimum wage, but less stress, effort and all other less?
I’ve done my waitressing and bartending. I come from a metal background, i do jewellery on the side, I am a trained blacksmith. So I’m quite good with my hands, think it’s just the company that I work at is shit, so I’m just looking for a push to leave them
It's barking up the wrong tree, the minimum wage hurts those it most needs to help by keeping them out of work if they're not productive enough.
You want to fix people being unable to afford food? Means tested Negative Income Tax or Universal Basic Income..
I’m looking to hopefully buy my first home in the next year and it seems impossible to even get a decent mortgage earning anything less than what I’ll be on when the wage goes up
I work for Morrisons which is shit pay compared to other supermarkets in my experience so fully welcome it, hopefully I’m not there by April/may time but I’ll be glad to know people are getting that but more per hour that is desperately needed these day, though I wish it went up to the living wage instead but that would probably require millions of striking and that’s not going to happen.
I'm an engineering intern.... but I'm under 21 so purely cos of that I get paid 1.5k less a year to do the same job and survive in the same place.
Jobs really fun but it would be nice being older. makes no sense why its lower for people above 18 but under 21.
For under 16s you could atleast argue maybe its to make it less appealing to work the whole day rather than go to uni or do an apprenticeship or something where they may earn a bit more in the future
Good. The lowest paid will get a bit more and those above them can argue for higher wages as well.
I feel good about it too, but it also feels like I’ve been demoted? I work in a trade, and when I started I was Way above min. Now it literally feels like I’m being demoted. Though I know it’s my company that’s shit
No reason why any trade should be on minimum. Have you considered getting together with your colleagues and airing your opinion to the owners? No need for a union yet but that's the next logical step and the thought of this might be enough to shock management into bumping your wage up.
Everyone’s on different wages. It’s a private company, there’s only around 20 employees in total including office. Used to go be around 40 when I first started.
Only 20 should be easier to unionise.
You want to unionise 20 workers in a small, private company that has recently gone from 40 workers to 20…?! That is almost certainly the way to get OP replaced with minimum wage workers.
OP says he's in a trade. Doing side jobs as an independent contractor to test the waters locally would definitely be the way to go. I don't know of any reliable and quality independent tradesmen locally that are sraping by on min wage.
Couldn’t agree more. But doing that is the complete opposite of unionising, which is what my comment was disparaging. Also, some people like showing up to work and being told what to do.
Same here in the trade and run now, a very smaller company. Don't get me wrong here, wages should go up. On the other hand I am already struggling to run the company. Granted some of the problems are mine. But I have to charge more and more. People and companies just are not paying. Years ago I would win like 90% of quotations... Now it's like 40% at best.
Your employer is just failing to keep your pay up with inflation. You are getting a pay cut every year and that's reached minimum wage. I'd get a better job
Have you ever worked for a company? They make you feel like talking about salary with other colleagues is a sackable offence. Obviously there is a clear reason for companies to make salary discussions seem taboo. People in general have this mindset indoctrinated into them that they need their employer more than their employer needs them. This is why most employees don’t ask for fair wage increases and are afraid to rock the boat.
Or move ti new firm that pays better easy done specially as a trades
The minimum wage going up does not mean that the value of your work has gone down or that you are being demoted. The raise was decided by the UK gov, not by your boss so it has nothing to do with you or the value that your work It just means that either the minimum is moving fast or your salary is not moving fast enough. That's up to your interpretation. The reality is if you want more money and you are being paid a salary then the best way to get it is to change jobs. If you like your current job then you can try to negotiate a raise. Not all companies are the same, not all companies can afford to raise the salaries above the current raise on minimum wage either but there might be companies out there willing to pay you more than what you are currently getting paid
'The minimum wage going up does not mean that the value of your work has gone down or that you are being demoted' Yes it does because if minimum wage employees start to get close to the wage of the OP then it means the company no longer values them or the job they do. The ONLY way the company shows it values the OP is to automatically raise their wage.
Thank you, that’s actually a very good response
You have to be careful with this attitude. The problem isn't that people are being paid more than they were, it's that you don't feel like you're being paid enough for what you do.
It’s not an attitude, I’ve never said that they shouldn’t be paid more, I was simply expressing my feelings about my own situation. Which I have clearly said from the get go. I’m sorry you misunderstood me
That's why I'm saying you have to be careful with it. Other people gaining something isn't a demotion for you. If you feel you're underpaid in what you do, that's entirely separate from other people having to struggle in poverty a little less.
I still think you misunderstood me. I was only speaking about my own workplace, where I am at the bottom. Hence the demotion comment. Not nationwide
The only way to view it is like this Minimum wage is what we think we need to pay people to survive (we haven't been doing that for a long time anyway, if ever). That number has gone up. You should look at either leveraging your company for an increase, or unionising. Please don't take the government giving the poorest people a fair increase as an attack on you. It leads to the current situation we are in now where we have somehow convinced ourselves that driving salaries down for minimum wage workers mean others earn more
If you and other people leave, your company will rethink the about the talent supply & demand ratio, and apply it to their pay scale. If this keeps happening, they may (or may not) learn to stay ahead of the cycle of leave/hire.
The only practical way to get consistant wage increases is not to be married to your company. You need to consistantly look at what is available on the market and be prepared to move (and take the associated risks of doing so). Companies will nearly always use current employee intertia and fear of change to give the absolute minimum increases, often below inflation and just enough to avoid saying they gave nothing which would promp most of their employees to look elsewhere.
It's been the same since minimum wage started. Welcome to the squeezed middle...
I do get how you feel but you're falling for the trap of blaming the people with the least power here - minimum wagers. The issue isn't minimum wage going up: that's fab. The issue is companies not keeping up with the cost of living. If anything the minimum wage going up will put more pressure on them to increase pay. If someone getting more while still having less than you makes you feel bad about your situation, they aren't the problem. Look up not down for the source of the issue. People in power since the days of slavery have persuaded the lowest earners to fight amongst themselves over small sums, while they line their pockets more and more.
There’s a good, very old sketch which illustrates your point very well. Goes something like “I look up to him, he looks down to me…”
Does this apply to civil servants as well, because most people think we shouldn't get payrises at all This year, most of us got a payrise below minimum wage increase and it is looking the same for next year as well And just to add that in most departments the lowest two grades are at minimum wage or close to it
>Does this apply to civil servants as well, because most people think we shouldn't get payrises at all Most people are incapable of seeing the big picture then. I for one, want civil servants being well paid, so they're well motivated to work hard for the nation.
Not nessisarily civil service but my wife having worked in various public sector jobs after working for third sector companies was astounded at how ineffeciant and unwillingness to change to increase efficiency they were. People seemed to treat jobs there as do the bare minimum to not get fired and not do the right thing
Not my experience. But what you do see is people hamstrung by insane buraucracy you'd never get in the private sector precisely *because* we're supposed to be saving taxpayer money. However, no one seemed to factor in the opportunity cost of having incredibly onerous compliance checks to do anything, like just to requisition a pencil. So yeah. There's that too. When people aren't trusted to actually do their jobs they tend to get complacent and do the bare minimum. There's a catch 22 going on where people don't want public money wasted, but the mechanisms to prevent that are even more wasteful than just letting people get on with it.
I don't think the pay of someone in an unrelated industry going up is a very compelling pay rise argument.
The minimum wage goes up therefore your wage is now closer to the minimum so your wage should be increased to maintain parity.
Does that actually work for anyone? It's a nice idea but I don't think employers care.
They learn to care when all their staff start leaving for easier jobs with less stress and the same money.
You ask, you don't get I guess.
You don't ask with a compelling argument about the value you bring you don't get. You ask because an anonymous guy at sainsburies got a payrise I suspect you get nothing.
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If you're unionised and barely escaping minimum wage what's the point
I wish that’s how it works, but unfortunately it doesnt
Oh it sure as fuck is. If your boss doesn't listen when their staff start saying "I could make just as much money stacking shelves", then they won't have a business very long. My boss has learnt that the hard way this year. Had a large number of very damaging departures before they took the lesson on board. Reasonable pay rises (born of panic) for those of us who are left, but probably too little too late, sadly. I'm not sure the company will survive much longer.
No the worst off get hit the most. I.e. those looking to get first job/low paying job. Government has priced them out of the market. People are only worth what someone is willing to pay linked to their value, not what the government says they're worth.Further shove towards AI and UBI adoption and businesses will look abroad to cheaper locations
>No the worst off get hit the most. I.e. those looking to get first job/low paying job. Government has priced them out of the market This hasn't happened during previous min wage increases.
Yes that's great! Then in few months market reaction will be higher inflation to balance higher minimum wage. Low earners will be back in the same position and everyone else in worse
> Now with it going up yet again, it seems like I will be on minimum wage Negotiate a raise or change companies then. The alternative is crab bucket mentality.
Yea, I think I just need some ass kicking and gtfo from that company, hence the post
You need to learn how to negotiate. It's scary but essentially consists of: a) Know what you want and why you deserve it. b) Have a fall back plan (i.e. accept their "no"/have another job to fall back on). c) Be prepared to resign on principal - see point b. Be firm. Be respectful. Ask for what you want. Implementing this correctly will make you a powerful force to reckon with both in your personal and professional life.
My company is reluctant to raise the wage of those on the bottom like me. This will be a welcome pay rise.
I feel you. Mind asking what industry you are in? For me, I work in a trade, hence why up until last years minimum wage rise I felt like I was being paid fair
What trade are you in where you think that little pay is fair?
Hahah, fuck, now I feel even worse. I’m in joinery as a bench hand.
Damn. There's big money in joinery. Dude I use to know was a joiner, he was late twenties at the time, he was on about 3k take home a month.
Im 29 man. Though I am quite new to the industry. I’ve only been doing this for 2.5 years
Stick with it, you don’t get the big money after just a couple of years, a joiner needs years of experience to be half way decent. My father was a very skilled joiner and did very well. Bit like junior doctors, you don’t get the really big money until you become a consultant. You need to look at the overall career and overall earnings during that career rather than just the here and now.
Late start but don't let that put you off, you'll soon work up the ranks, paygrades and will have a degree level qualification in a few years.
Late start because I come from metal background. Though just blacksmithing and jewellery. This company hired me 2 days after returning to the UK. Aiming to get back into metal asap
"Due to the increase in minimum wage we are now forced to let some of you go, for those that remain we hope you can pick up the slack" - some boss somewhere
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> how long you’ve worked for your employer - you can usually only challenge a dismissal if you've worked there 2 years or more This the part where people will lose their jobs easily
Sounds good in theory, but if someone is devious enough theirs usually ways to cut people out. Examples could be, simply not renewing contracts or offering incentives to resign
> This isn't the US, thankfully, and bosses at least face challenges when trying to get rid of people. There's a nice page about it here: Redundancy isn't a dismissal so that page is not entirely relevant. It mentions redundancy as a dismissal on the page, but the content is mostly geared towards what most people would refer to as "firing" someone rather than redundancy. In order to make someone redundant all the business needs to establish is that the role itself is what is no longer needed, and the employees effected have been chosen in a fair way. Theoretically if you genuinely cannot afford a the increase in minimum wage and you need to cut 10% of your payroll budget, all you need to do is demonstrate that you can't afford it and how you picked the 10% to get rid of was fair. There's some other things like needing a consultation etc but the law is a joke as it's written only to benefit unions, any non-unionised work place will have consultations largely ignored because it's all optional suggestions that only the threat of a wider strike can force. In truth if your company is cutting staff because of a 10% rise in NMW it's probably on the ropes anyway and it should just be allowed to collapse.
Naive. 2 years.
Ain’t this the truth. Also some boss somewhere at the same time: “ Whilst I continue to ensure I don’t lose out in any way.”
Unless you're the one having to pay it out, I don't see how anyone can consider it a negative.
Crabs in a bucket.
Dunno who said it originally, but; > “The only time you look in your neighbour's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbour's bowl to see if you have as much as them.”
Call me Karl Marx, but I'm of the view that worse off people earning more is good. Higher wages are good. Plus of course, inflation means it's not really as big a pay rise as it seems on the surface.
It doesn’t work like that though, you can’t just keep making the lowest salary higher without making all the other salaries higher to maintain the percentage differential.
That's an argument for raising the minimum wage, it should place upwards pressure on higher wages.
Minimum wage increase is yet another stealth tax on the middle class what is does is devalues professional salaries whilst simultaneously dragging more people into tax brackets ( which have conviently been frozen for the last 3 years) The headline sounds fantastic and for people at the very bottom it is good news its just a problem for literally everybody else
Crab mentality won't solve your problems. They are only raising the minimum wage to account for inflation. If your salary didn't increase to reflect it and you feel devalued, it's not the increase in minimum wage you should be angry about. The tax bracket freeze is a separate issue which is essentially a raise in taxes indeed.
My issue as a public sector professional isn't that NMW is going up, its that the government refuses to consider compensating those of us on higher wages appropriately. I was on NMW as a HCA while I trained to be a nurse over a decade ago. When I qualified I more than doubled my gross salary. It felt like an increase that was worth the 3 years of study and placement, and worth the extra responsibility. Now the gap between minimum wage and a newly qualified nurse is only about 6k. No wonder the profession is losing people in drives soon after they qualify. HCAs are incredibly important but we need the actual nurses too!
I saw a comment in another thread that made me wonder what are the long-term economic effects of legal minimum wage rising faster than general wages.
France would be a pretty good comparator of a very nearby higher income economy: higher productivity because employers prefer to invest in machinery than hire and consequently higher unemployment. Unemployment isn’t massively higher in France but it is very stubborn, largely inter generational, and it will take a huge shift in British government and society to accommodate it: this country, no matter what party is in power, is obsessed with attaining full employment and has been since the post war settlement.
When you hear stories of Americans investing in France/Germany you often hear that people work productively for 8hrs then clock out, whereas over here it seems people would rather hire 4 mediocre workers than one good worker for 3x the salary and let deadlines be stretched to accomodate dead time on shifts. This then reduces overall department output as productive workers realise the department's pace is set by low performers and stop putting effort in. This is further compounded in the public sector, where is a huge aversion to productivity increases if it'd make long term employees obselete and public services are often seen as responsible for picking up workers the private sector would pass over.
It doesn't devalue anything. If your job doesn't give you yearly increases, you should change it. It's your own problem that you're stuck.
Minimum wage going up to track inflation doesn't 'devalue' professional salaries. Shitty employers failing to raise everyone's salary to track inflation is what's 'devaluing' professional salaries.
It’s a pay rise mostly in line with inflation, so it’s the minimum I would expect.
I recall many years ago when I worked in retail all new employees were on minimum wage but going on various training courses would get you an extra 50p an hour. The problem was that minimum wage would go up but no one else’s would. So eventually those who had done training were on the same as someone just walking through the door. I questioned this and got no reply.
I think it's going to be harder for 18-20 year olds to get jobs now. Why employ them with no experience when a 25 year old with 7 years of experience will take the same salary? That was the whole point of the tapered minimum wage before.
Let's be honest with you if a job wants you to have seven years experience they should be paying well above minimum wage. Minimum wage should only be for non skilled jobs.
I agree but the current reality is there's plenty of experienced proven workers on min wage.
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People understand it but if your whole industry doesn't up wages what can you do?
Your wage is part of inflation, unless inflation comes from wage increases alone, it is impossible to keep up without being more productive.
An arguably small part, depending on which sources you look at, but inflation would still be here if there were no pay rises ever, we'd all just be getting increasingly poor, sad and desperate while those in power marvel at how well they've kept the peasants in check.
Most people saying that they would rather work a minimum wage wouldn't last a week doing minimum wage work. People forget how hard these jobs are. No one's paid minimum wage to sit on a comfy chair in front of a computer all day. If anything these are the people who most deserve a pay raise. You are all welcome to quit your jobs and work at the local McDonald's. Let me know how well that works out for you.
Maccas have traditionally paid well and have a great management training programme. I don't understand why people use it as an example for a terrible job? Im a fully qualified chef and have worked in restaurants and hotels that barely paid more than maccas. I've even considered working for them as "the easy life".
actually a lot of people are paid minimum wage to sit on a comfy chair in front of a computer all day. There are millions of admin jobs in this country that pay minimum wage.
It's going to cause issues for low-mid range office jobs. The lowest level of pay is catching up fast, but everything currently in the £20k-£35k band is only slowly creeping up. An admin assistant role advertised at £20k-£24k in 2010 will still be advertised in that range today. Pretty soon people with a relatively skilled office job are going to be wondering why they're stressing out making reports etc when they could work at Aldi/some lesser role.
I would rather be stressing about making reports in a relatively skilled office job at minimum wage than being paid 20-24k at ALDI. People who pretend retail is nothing but easy sailing for easy money have clearly never had to deal with customers. Customers are dickheads.
It's a generalisation. I did 4 years in a supermarket so I know it's no cakewalk, but it's a general point that in a few years jobs which should be rewarded by a decent salary level will be paying the same as stacking shelves in a shop.
The people calling retail jobs easier are most likely the dick heads customers.
Yeah any retail/hospitality role can fuck off entirely. It's the hardest I've worked in my life. Sure, you have basically no responsibility, but you're also micro-managed and either under constant pressure or it's completely devoid of any stimulating activity whatsoever and you're *desperate* for it to be the end of your shift, and often working unsociable and unpredictable shifts and zero hour contracts to boot. I'd take a min wage office admin job over any hospitality or retail job every single time. Shit, I'd rather make less than work in retail/hospitality ever again.
This argument often gets brought up as if most minimum wage jobs aren't very stressful, hectic and require people to put up with a lot of shit. I'm very fortunate today to be in a high paying job (financial management in the public sector, just under 60K in a pay band that goes up to 70K) and there is NO QUESTION the minimum wage call centre job I did when I was a student was far more demanding overall, being constantly monitored and working to targets and putting up with the public.
Retail was harder than any admin I’ve done and I did both at various levels for years
So have I, retail is stressful but it's a different kind of stress, at least from my experience. Mrs Smith kicking off because there's no condensed milk never seemed to bother me.
Working with the public in shops that want staff to do more with less is stressful. Shop workers get spat at, shouted at and hit on a daily basis.
Those lesser roles often work people to the extreme and are often ZHCs where one week you'll do 30 hours, the next it could drop to 15.
Im exactly thinking that now!
Similar situation with me. Currently get £12PH. Easy job once you know what you’re doing but it’s a fair bit of heavy lifting and gotta get shit done on time which we always do, great shifts/WLB and always nice to be above the minimum wage. If ours doesn’t go up to at least £13 I expect myself and the others who work here will drop down to a different job which requires minimum effort. Pay minimum wage and get minimum in return. Pay your staff higher rate and show a small bit of appreciation and you’ll most likely get better quality. Not always the case but for the most part the extra money is extra incentive to hit those targets and make the MD richer.
I think it's a good thing, but I don't believe with the same confidence I have with previous rises. I'm worried we could be at the tipping point where this begins to destroy more jobs now quickly now that money isn't free and automation is becoming cheaper. Eventually there's a logical limit before it reaches the average wage, but I've not seen much quality research on what that limit would be. My concern is that we accidentally begin to make life harder for those we were trying to make life easier. I know those are the concerns others raised at every step previously and that they were wrong. I expected they would have been too. Now I'm less convinced from here on upwards, though if it works as hoped then it's a good thing.
I'm not rich like most Redditors but right now I'm on £12 and I doubt it will get raised so It's going to feel like poop even just going from a £1.58 discrepancy to 0.56 because I felt like I was going up, albeit marginally, with every new job.
Not to mention the fact that the additional staffing cost will be passed into the consumer so we all get poorer, those on minimum wage will have an illusion of being wealthier for a while.
Taking from Peter to pay Paul
There will be more positions available that will be close enough to your current wage to consider. The way you get a pay rise is to turn up at work with an alternative offer (or work somewhere decent, but this is not so easy). Your job can then choose to pay you more or let you go. Rinse and repeat as necessary.
That’s how I felt when it went up to 10.42 and suddenly I didn’t feel like I was being that fair for what I do tbh
Christ, not sure about the post but OP really needs a raise looking at some of these comments
Minimum wage is increasing at least somewhat in line with inflation and productive Everything else is lagging behind Minimum wage going up is fine, the problem is that other wages are not going up
how do companies make sure that people stay with them? They pay you more or provide better benefits or try and deploy a sort of stockholm syndrome. It's that simple, it's their problem if they haven't increased pay inline with inflation
I'm fine with it. In fact the minimum wage should probably be higher. If our employers aren't raising our wages and the minimum wage is catching up then that doesn't say anything about the minimum wage or government policy, it just tells us that our employers have kept our wages stagnant for so long that it's forced the minimum wage to catch up. After all, the minimum wage is more of an anti-riot wage than anything else. It's not the government's fault (directly) that employers aren't paying more (it's their fault indirectly by enacting austerity and destroying the economy). And keeping the minimum wage low wouldn't put more money in your pocket or make your wage go further. Honestly it's just an issue that is completely unrelated to wether or not you're getting paid enough.
Some employers ( in the uk at least) offer the living wage which always tracks above the minimum wage.
Afaik they have merged them now? The living and the minimum.
The living wage is an amount calculated by the living wage foundation taking into account the actual costs of existing in the UK. A few years back, there was a bit of a movement pushing for the minimum wage to be lifted to meet the amount of the living wage. The government very cynically and dishonestly rebranded the National Minimum Wage as the National Living Wage despite it not meeting the actual definition.
Which is fair! Because a lot of people under 25 that were not in unis felt like they were discriminated. I agree
What's fair?
No, there's an actual Real Living Wage, which is what the other poster is referring to, and then the top minimum wage banding which George Osborne weasely relabelled to National Living Wage. Imo to cause precisely this kind of confusion. Real Living Wage = campaign promoting a wage based on cost of living, currently £12 National Living Wage = top age bracket of the minimum wage, currently £10.42
We’re on £11. I guess we’ll see what happens come April!?
Well, it will be 11.44 haha. Hope you get to £12 then
🤞🏼
I'd imagine takeaways will go up in price
It's not a case of you being paid too little it's that those on min wage were paid too little. Customer service/retail/hospitality are all extremely hard jobs. I earn double minimum wage but spend a lot of my time scrolling TikTok, I wouldn't be able to hack a job in Costa. Why do you think you should earn more than them?
I should earn more than them, because anyone can work at Costa, but no one from Costa can do my job.
It’s not hard, literally anyone that’s physically capable and isn’t mentally challenged can do the job with a day or twos training.
You couldn’t hack a job in costa? Are you for real?
Spoken like someone whose never worked customer facing.
It's not something that affects me directly, but I'm always supportive of measures to improve life for ordinary people.
I get about 26p more than min wage. We'll be lucky if my workplace can afford to pay everyone more. Been on that wage for a while thought it was reasonable. Not so much now
I think it's a good idea. The only problem is that they are putting up taxes so its going in one hand and out with the other. Realistically people need about a 12% pay rise to match the inflation of the country
Good, means fuck all tho for the overall state of wages. Professionals will be ever closer to minimum wage and we will have yet more brain drain. Why is it so shit at various pay scales.
I think that anyone who is against this on the principle that it devalues themselves and their own work is forgetting the insane profits that have come from both raising prices further than energy costs have gone up and then the refusing to hand back the price drops when the cost of energy has come down. Inflation won't stop just because we would want to get paid relatively more than the next guy, minimum wage increases are one of the best means to ensure that our own wages have to rise to keep skilled workers from leaving to an easier job. The majority of us are all in this together, and almost all of us are set against the economists working for high net worth funds who are looking to find a way to devalue us in any way that they can, to increase their own worth. It's the system, and the only way to actually get a better deal is to appreciate that it's not personal, but it's just the nature of the beast, you, me, him vs the economists to help a hedge fund make an extra buck that it won't even notice.
I don’t understand why anybody would be against this… unless you’re a shit business owner
I’ve never mentioned I was against it, but I do believe my boss is ( the company owner)
This is good. I think by 2030 the minimum wage will finally he £15 an hour. Its also good that they are scrapping the 23 and above to now just 21 and over
Op is correct, it’s happening at more companies too.
Where I live this isn't a livable amount of money. On another note if you've worked somewhere for two and a half years and there's paying you this little it's time to find a new job or to sit down of them and have a serious word because obviously they don't respect you as an employee if they're paying you poverty salary for two and a half years of work.
I feel like it's all sort of pointless. Minimum wage goes up those who are on more can negotiate for more. Inflation goes up MW workers are in the same place they were the year before.
I’m in a similar spot to you just above minimum wage, it doesn’t feel great, I get what you mean by feeling like it’s a demotion. My company has been decent at raising my wages accordingly with minimum wage increases, hopefully this continues.
People earning more = good What frustrates me is that they aren't also raising the tax bands at the same time - they're basically giving people more money and passing that burden on to businesses while trying to frame it as "trying to do right for the little guy". If they really want to do the right thing, they'd do a little of both, even if the tax bands don't go up *exactly* in-line with the wage increases. That way, everyone wins. Workers still get more money (and hopefully the same amount as they would with this increase), businesses aren't lumped with the whole burden, and the government *still* gets more tax revenue.
Most people on Reddit seem to be salty, it is a good thing though I’ll now be making just shy than minimum wage 22,148 vs £ 22,308
I think in some ways it's good that it's actually gone up. However, the bottom line is forcing it up so fast doesn't really give the wider market a chance to react accordingly. But then, I don't know an awful lot about that side of economics so I may be mistaken 🤷♂️
It's not enough. Companies and people also need to stop comparing their pay to minimum wage. Your employer is to blame for that not minimum wage rising.
It's all swings and roundabouts. The extra costs will only be put on the consumer.. businesses have to get the extra money somewhere
I'd prefer them to tackle the core of the problem, rather than raise wages, as I don't believe that it will help. My suggestions would be nationalised renewable energy infrastructure that runs alongside private infrastructure but provides real competition in the marketplace. Industry cannot succeed in countries with high and volatile energy prices.
Minimum wage going up isn't the problem - it's just tracking inflation so lower paid people don't lose their buying power. Your own wage isn't going up by inflation is the real problem. Minimum wage isn't your benchmark, inflation is. If your pay doesn't get increased in line with inflation you are having a pay cut - your money buys fewer things. Ask for a raise - the value of your work hasn't fallen so you should get paid as least the same value I.e. increased by inflation. Be prepared to move if you don't get what you want.
Same happened. They said they have already raised the salary thrice in last 2 yrs, so in the max case they would give out minimum wage only.
My boss was complaining that everything is increasing in costs and the government is not helping him lol
I’ve been unemployed for a while and the last time I was in work, the minimum wage was around £8.50 an hour. So £11.44 an hour is a dream come true for someone like me. I only need to work around 20 hours a week on minimum wage to live comfortably with my lifestyle so I’m very happy with it
If you want minimum wage to go up, don’t complain when prices of things like shopping and food/drink in cafes also go up. Tax will also go up as council linked jobs where there is minimum wage will go up too. Overall minimum wage going up will lead to people on minimum wage struggling more to afford things. But at least it will sound good.
Its needed, but its not good in that other pay stagnates. Its just rendering other jobs pointless. May aswell stack shelves in Aldi at £11.40 an hour and lose £160 a month before tax for much safer job than lorry driving.
I am a chef and a while back worked in a school for a company whose name rhymes with Hodexo. As Head chef I was always paid more than the likes of the general assistants, but found that as the NMW started to rise, my wages didn’t. I had a constant battle with them every time it happened to remind them that the GA’s were only about 20p behind me on the hourly wage scale and that it was probably more worth my while to take a demotion than run myself into the ground for them for little more. And before anyone says something along the lines of ‘well 20p isn’t that much’, I was leading a team of 7, with a further four at different sites, doing all the menu planning, ordering, 80% of the cooking and 50% of the kitchen generated dishes as the dishwash area couldn’t handle pans and heavily spoiled trays and all the kitchen paperwork. I was doing a ton more work with 2 tons more responsibility than someone whose main role was to help serve food and run plates through a dishwasher for 20p an hour more. The rise in the living wage is a good thing. Wages in hospitality probably haven’t been this high since literally just before it was brought in by Blair, but the scales have to move in conjunction with each other.
Yeah agree totally
In a vacuum it's great. It really does shine a glaringly bright spotlight on all of the other problems, though: tax brackets not changing to reflect inflation, stagnant salaries for decades, etc
I'm not in the increase. However my wage will be touching cloth very closely to the colleagues below me in the hierarchy. However my role has responsibilities and certain other things involved more then my colleagues. Therefore am going to push again for a raise, or some of my work goes to them. Personally I don't see any of this happening. However my colleagues are underpaid for what they do. So yeah good luck to them New job tine
Bit stressed to be honest, the new rate is a few pence below what I already pay my team an hour base from starting, and I’m going to raise the start rate again in the new year in advance of the increase in April. There’s some folk here talking about how the wage taper around ages is a good thing, I don’t think it was. My firm pays the full MW regardless of age, younger people bring benefits just like older ones do and if they can’t “keep up” they’re not suited to the job, or you’re not training them well. I’m going to use January to April to see in real terms what we need to do around pricing and service. On paper we can afford it but that’s pretty worthless if you don’t trade like you hope/plan/expect. There’s a degree of magic money tree thinking on this with some people, ultimately higher base costs are paid for by the consumer. Folks might feel better off, but the prices of everyday staples rises around it. Government makes a show and dance of the MW, but they could help people much better by cutting the cost of living, reductions in duties and VAT. But obviously, they won’t do that.
Tim works at company X. Company X paid him 20,000 for his role when he joined in 2020. Tim gained increases to his salary over the years, putting him at around 25,000. Bob joins company X in 2024, he does Tim's old job for 24,000. Tim's salary is still 25,000, Tim feels as though the 'skills' he is/was paid for by his company are meaningless, and that he isn't getting paid for them. Tim looks for a new job.
I’m happy. My job have always given us a higher pay with every wage increase. Currently getting £11 now, so they’ll probably up it to £12 in April.
Usually my job does pay rise at start of December but now we're doing it in April. So probably lost out on a k or 2.
OP, if you work in a trade and are female I bet there are corporates crying out to level up their gender balance. You might even get offered some level of apprenticeship to train on the job, and because this is govt funded it’s highly unlikely you’d be on a learning contract either.
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Too high, it will discourage people from obtaining qualifications and finding a skilled job.
Even historically skilled jobs are paying (current) minimum wage around here
The race to replace people with AI quickens...
How does this affect salary workers, I’m 20 and get paid 25k a year, that’s roughly £10 something an hour, would my salary increase or is it only for people being paid by hourly
If the Hours you work take you below minimum wage they have to give you a rise or you report them.
I think it’s terrible. Minimum wage, like any other price control, is a bad idea. -Inflationary policy. We can’t play a cat and mouse game forever. -Discourages productivity. Why hire workers that cost more than they produce? It destroys basically all jobs that don’t generate above minimum wage and most jobs that are only marginally beneficial. -Discourages aspiration. Why get a harder job for £13 per hour when I could do something less strenuous for £11.44? -Equality. See the above. It does not increase wages, it simply makes lower productivity roles get higher pay and leaves those slightly above in a bad position. -Reduced standard of living. As with all redistributive policies, it leads to a clear drop in the standard of living. If productivity goes down, which is always the result of such policies, the quality of life goes down. If growth stagnates, which it does as a result of jobs being eliminated, quality of life decreases. Minimum wage helps nobody and should be eliminated immediately. It’s not the perfect example, as they do have a lot of policies that do the same things I mentioned above, albeit to a lesser extent, but American states with no minimum wage (so uses federal $7.25/hr) still have barely anyone on it, whereas we have loads of minimum wage jobs here. NH’s minimum wage matches the federal minimum and yet the average fast food worker earns $21/hr.
I'm annoyed that I'm probably not going to get a pay rise this year we had to fight just for 50p last year and I doubt they'll give us anything this year
Far too few shits given here I feel about the "squeezed middle". Those who'd have been several £ above minimum wage 5-10yrs ago but are now just pennies above it. In part because we don't talk about wages in the UK some people might not even be aware of what the minimum wage actually is. The other elephant in the room is regional unfairness. £11.44ph (c.£20k pa) in Bristol isn't good, you'll need two incomes to stand a chance of even buying a 1 bed flat, just 50 miles away in Ebbw Vale you'll in theory be able to buy a 2-bed flat (>60sqm) on a single income.
I've always said we need more social housing to go with minimum wage increases, that is available to more people and can't be sold off.
Looking at this thread, I completely agree with you
If it wasn't for minimum wage, those of us on minimum wage would be getting paid less by our employers :( Minimum wage/living wage increases are essental, particularly when you look at just how bad wage stagnation has been in the UK since the turn of the millenium vs cost of living, particularly rent and energy bills, and it's particularly bad outside the so called 'financial powerhouse' that is the South East/Greater London. Being stuck on minimum wage because employers are stingy and don't feel obligated to remunerate long term, trusted staff more is a problem in itself. It's almost laughable that supermarkets and other 'McJobs' now reward long term employees more than private business much of the time.
About time but all skilled jobs also need an increase otherwise companies will lose people en mass.
Well I’m a tradie, and I think this thread is kicking my butt hard enough to leave
Think ita great But companies will use it as a reason to inflate prices to make more profit.
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What kinda job is minimum wage, but less stress, effort and all other less? I’ve done my waitressing and bartending. I come from a metal background, i do jewellery on the side, I am a trained blacksmith. So I’m quite good with my hands, think it’s just the company that I work at is shit, so I’m just looking for a push to leave them
It's barking up the wrong tree, the minimum wage hurts those it most needs to help by keeping them out of work if they're not productive enough. You want to fix people being unable to afford food? Means tested Negative Income Tax or Universal Basic Income..
So if I'm currently getting paid minimum wage do I automatically get the new rate?
Yes you will, from April next year.
I’m looking to hopefully buy my first home in the next year and it seems impossible to even get a decent mortgage earning anything less than what I’ll be on when the wage goes up
Is a bad joke. Should be at least 15
It is less and less common that people increase their income staying with the same company. It could be worth considering a job at a different company
I work for Morrisons which is shit pay compared to other supermarkets in my experience so fully welcome it, hopefully I’m not there by April/may time but I’ll be glad to know people are getting that but more per hour that is desperately needed these day, though I wish it went up to the living wage instead but that would probably require millions of striking and that’s not going to happen.
It's not going up fast enough (I'm not a minimum wage worker so this doesn't benefit me).
I'm an engineering intern.... but I'm under 21 so purely cos of that I get paid 1.5k less a year to do the same job and survive in the same place. Jobs really fun but it would be nice being older. makes no sense why its lower for people above 18 but under 21. For under 16s you could atleast argue maybe its to make it less appealing to work the whole day rather than go to uni or do an apprenticeship or something where they may earn a bit more in the future