In April this year, former Chancellor George Osborne’s proposal that a “living wage” of £7.20 for the over 25s came into force. And that rate will rise to £9 per hour across the UK by 2010.
Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has said at their national conference in Liverpool that Labour will introduce a minimum wage of at least £10 when it takes power. That would represent something like a £19,250 annual wage for the lowest paid.
McDonnell recognised in his plans that some small businesses would struggle to meet such an expense and pledged help for small firms although there were no firm details of what they might be.
With the way things are going in British politics it would seem that the prospects of a Labour government under Jeremy Corbyn any time soon are fairly remote. But if such a proposal were to come into force, would you be affected?
12 Responses
“The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money”
This money has to come from somewhere. Businesses can’t afford it to pay it and so workers would lose their jobs. Unemployment benefit spending by the government increases. Taxes are raised. People have no money to buy things. More businesses go under. More people lose their jobs. Benefits bill rises even more. Taxes are raised. Everyone’s broke. Country is a mess and in huge debt. People start voting the Tories in again.
Let’s just skip all of that and not have a socialist government.
Whenever I hear the next economic idea they’ve come up with, I’m reminded of an episode of bagpuss, where the mice “make” chocolate biscuits in a mill (Bagpuss – E08 – The Mouse Mill) It’s about the same level of fantasy and stuck in the 70s
We already pay around or about the living wage and I do not believe this will put jobs at risk in good businesses as the more you pay the better the staff you get pay pea nuts get monkeys.
As for labour just spending and squandering money I don’t think that will be the case this time don’t forget at £10 an hour they will save millions in working tax credits and good companies will still need staff .
The current crop in charge of Labour are the same people who were singing the praises of Venezuela a couple of years ago. Jeremy Corbyn said it showed there was another way. The likes of Diane Abbot and Owen Jones even visited there during the election.
They keep very quiet about it now.
I agree with James.
If the business can afford to then they should; countless businesses making multi-million (even billion) £ profit whilst paying their employees the absolute bare minimum who then rely on tax credits & childcare just to scrape by every month.
The businesses that genuinely can’t should be properly supported by appropriate subsidies rather than benefits currently paid individuals to make ends meet. How about we take some of that tax certain multi-national’s should be paying and use that to support our businesses and our workers and pay our staff enough to live on.