Most liked posts in thread: £15 an hour to flip burgers

People on low wages are paid out in tax/child tax credits to boost their wages which costs the taxpayer money. Why should business be subsidised like this?

There's always the same panic about the minimum wage and it's never even nearly as bad as the doom and gloom predictions.

 

They should introduce a national basic income for all. That way most benefits could be got rid of and wages would be earned on top if you work

 

I’d like to see the Venn diagram of folk whinging about immigration depressing wages, and the folk whinging about the McDonald’s workers wanting a proper wage. It’ll be nigh on a fcking circle, I bet.

 

I despise the fact that we, as a country, predicate every argument on people being either ‘hard working’ or ‘lazy’ and there’s no in between.

The overwhelming majority of those unemployed are not simply ‘lazy’ - it’s a crass stereotype that is based on the fear of somebody other than one’s self getting something for nothing.

Inequality is a huge problem in this country, and that’s nothing to do with people’s desire to sit back on the gravy train. It’s an issue that desperately needs addressing.

 

In 1938 after the worst depression in US history FD Roosevelt introduced a minimum wage and maximum hours you can be forced to work, The minimum wage still exists today and has done the USA no harm economically,
He set out his philosophy that firms must pay workers enough income to buy the goods industry produces in his bill that took the USA from recession to prosperity, you can read it here if you wish, He truly was a great man
http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little. Franklin D. Roosevelt
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/franklin-d-roosevelt-quotes

 

Grow up.

You’ve just explicitly equated (most) wealth inequality with laziness, suggested that the poor would merely squander their resources and then made a wild overreach to make an ill judged swing at the left.

 

Corbyn is either mentally unstable, or the world's worst politician. I have hard core Labour friends who wont vote for their beloved party whilst this clown is in charge

 

Not sure how your warehouse thing balances with a National basic income. Those that work would earn on top of the basic so there would be a difference in total income. So in your example both are employed so yes they could get the same income but that is the same as the current system, also how does it condemn workers to a future of no progression more so than the current system?

 

The National basic income replaces all benefits etc and gives a living income for everyone, On top of this people would have an income from employment, The only difference from now is that you would lose various departments and hundreds of thousands of employees checking millions of bits of paper, The savings would be huge,

 

Inequality of income is mostly (not always) decided by the input (work effort) of the individual, if we were all made equal financially overnight it would probably take less than 10 minutes in a free society to reverse the situation back to square one, socialism/communism just cannot and does not work anywhere on planet Earth...

 

increase minimum wage just increases everyone wages and costs. So yes they get £15 an hour but can still only buy the same amount of stuff

 

If the national basic is enough to live on though where's the desire for employment?
And if it isn't enough to live on, what's the point?

It all sounds very good in theory, I'm just curious as to how it would realistically work.

 

No one is extremely comfortable unemployed and on benefits, Perhaps you would like to try it and see? 2 MPs said the same as you and tried it and failed to last more than a week, Here is what you have to do to claim and the amounts paid, As you say in your opinion much to high and provide Extreme comfort,
https://www.gov.uk/jobseekers-allowance

 

@River_City_Bantam

RCB some great posts on this thread.

"Factories moving out of the country resulting in cheaper products being imported back into the same country and undercutting the remaining in-country manufacturers making them not viable." really interesting quote. Especially in terms of Brexit/NAFTA (Trump). Not wanting to derail the thread... But you can't really have it both ways, as Trump wants. If you bring manufacturing back into the country the price of consumer goods will rise. If you leave it to importing goods then domestic goods are going to get undercut.

Going back to the original topic of discussion the minimum wage. Connecticut is planning on raising the minimum wage $1 every year for the next 5 years. Taking the minimum wage from $10 at the start of 2019 to $15 in 2023. It is possible but it would have to be across the board.

 

Alternatively rather than close they could increase the price

 

Agree with the points so far. Zero business sense which augers well for a McDonnell led government.....not..

But.............if we focused the £15ph just on the fast food industry then society as a whole would save money via reduced health care costs, fatsos would be slimmer and families happier.