| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today 09:51 - Nov 26 with 3937 views | itfcjoe |
Over the last 10 years it seems to have been totally forgotten who drives the country in wealth creation |  |
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| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 14:58 - Nov 26 with 856 views | Deano69 |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 10:48 - Nov 26 by DJR |
The Resolution Foundation, broadly left-wing, said this about the increase in the minimum wage: hardly a ringing endorsement.
The latest rise in the national living wage – while small compared to recent history – will nonetheless deliver a welcome wage boost to more than two million workers and their families.
Younger workers are set for an even bigger pay rises – but these steep increases risk causing more harm than good if they put firms off hiring and push up NEET [not in employment, education or training] rates.
The minimum wage has good to claim to be Britain’s biggest policy success in a generation. But at its higher level the government and low pay commission need to act with more flexibility when setting rates so they can respond to changing labour market conditions. |
Not sure what the objective was in its introduction, but certainly cannot see anything to evidence it has helped individuals that work, individuals that have retired, businesses, inflation, public services etc etc.
It has crucified hospitality, leisure, fixed income households, pensioners, small businesses, businesses reliant on fixed government contracts. I can see it making it difficult for school leavers to find work as they will have out-priced themselves due to a lack of experience and capability (so you may as well employ someone older but able to do the job from day one)
Anyone seeing double the disposable income since hourly rates have doubled in 10 years? No thought not.
Big success! [Post edited 26 Nov 15:00]
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| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 14:59 - Nov 26 with 850 views | TNBlue |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 14:53 - Nov 26 by Kievthegreat |
Just measure on a cold day and you'll be fine. |
Hee. Appears its cold every day |  | | |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 15:02 - Nov 26 with 840 views | TNBlue |
Not happy about tax on pension contributions. They've already gone after pensioners. Now they're attacking the next generation of pensioners | | | |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 15:12 - Nov 26 with 797 views | mellowblue |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 14:58 - Nov 26 by Deano69 |
Not sure what the objective was in its introduction, but certainly cannot see anything to evidence it has helped individuals that work, individuals that have retired, businesses, inflation, public services etc etc.
It has crucified hospitality, leisure, fixed income households, pensioners, small businesses, businesses reliant on fixed government contracts. I can see it making it difficult for school leavers to find work as they will have out-priced themselves due to a lack of experience and capability (so you may as well employ someone older but able to do the job from day one)
Anyone seeing double the disposable income since hourly rates have doubled in 10 years? No thought not.
Big success! [Post edited 26 Nov 15:00]
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The introduction clearly was to prevent slave labour wages in many cases and to generally raise living standards for low paid and first time workers. It succeeded and was absorbed despite warnings of productivity issues for companies. But as time has gone on, it has hit a tipping point where the cost of employment of lower skilled workers has endangered many sectors and firms within those sectors. As an employer, I think it went beyond a level it needed to go, should have been inflation proofed at best, several years ago. Just my thoughts. | | | |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 15:21 - Nov 26 with 775 views | SuperKieranMcKenna |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 15:02 - Nov 26 by TNBlue |
Not happy about tax on pension contributions. They've already gone after pensioners. Now they're attacking the next generation of pensioners |
We can’t afford the state pensions as they are since they (politicians) never had the foresight to put the money aside and grow it (as with a private pension). Even with a growing working working age population it’s becoming our second largest expenditure after the NHS.
We should be encouraging those with the means to save for their retirement and taking the burden off the state. Ridiculous short sighted cash grab that will cost us more in the long term. | | | |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 15:27 - Nov 26 with 748 views | Kievthegreat |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 10:48 - Nov 26 by DJR |
The Resolution Foundation, broadly left-wing, said this about the increase in the minimum wage: hardly a ringing endorsement.
The latest rise in the national living wage – while small compared to recent history – will nonetheless deliver a welcome wage boost to more than two million workers and their families.
Younger workers are set for an even bigger pay rises – but these steep increases risk causing more harm than good if they put firms off hiring and push up NEET [not in employment, education or training] rates.
The minimum wage has good to claim to be Britain’s biggest policy success in a generation. But at its higher level the government and low pay commission need to act with more flexibility when setting rates so they can respond to changing labour market conditions. |
We keep increasing minimum wage to deal with the fact that cost of living is getting worse. However we don't seem to be tackling the cost of living. This won't bring down the cost of housing, utility bills, etc... Those key cost rises are born out of structural problems that we keep ignoring.
The solution for "housing costs are too much because of lack of supply" is not, "give people more money to pay the costs". The undersupply still exists and so the prices will just keep going up. The solution is build more bloody houses! |  | | |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 15:33 - Nov 26 with 734 views | TNBlue |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 15:21 - Nov 26 by SuperKieranMcKenna |
We can’t afford the state pensions as they are since they (politicians) never had the foresight to put the money aside and grow it (as with a private pension). Even with a growing working working age population it’s becoming our second largest expenditure after the NHS.
We should be encouraging those with the means to save for their retirement and taking the burden off the state. Ridiculous short sighted cash grab that will cost us more in the long term. |
Yep, it will certainly make people think twice about putting the maximum contribution into their private pensions. And even if you do still put the maximum in then having that taxed will reduce the size of your pension pot so more will likely rely on state pension. Id rather they hadn't bottled out of the planned rise on income tax. | | | |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 15:37 - Nov 26 with 699 views | Deano69 |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 15:12 - Nov 26 by mellowblue |
The introduction clearly was to prevent slave labour wages in many cases and to generally raise living standards for low paid and first time workers. It succeeded and was absorbed despite warnings of productivity issues for companies. But as time has gone on, it has hit a tipping point where the cost of employment of lower skilled workers has endangered many sectors and firms within those sectors. As an employer, I think it went beyond a level it needed to go, should have been inflation proofed at best, several years ago. Just my thoughts. |
I cant disagree with your explanation on the need for it, but we are still being told the same levels of poverty exist. Plus, it has also dragged those with fixed incomes in to the same situation.
In addition, small businesses are virtually on their knees with regards to outgoings on salaries, taxation, insurances, energy, building rental, increased legislation etc etc. The vast majority of business owners are not in multi-million pound houses and spaffing money on yachts and hyper cars, most are eeking a living plus also carrying the burden of employees livelihoods. | |
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| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 15:40 - Nov 26 with 686 views | Deano69 |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 15:27 - Nov 26 by Kievthegreat |
We keep increasing minimum wage to deal with the fact that cost of living is getting worse. However we don't seem to be tackling the cost of living. This won't bring down the cost of housing, utility bills, etc... Those key cost rises are born out of structural problems that we keep ignoring.
The solution for "housing costs are too much because of lack of supply" is not, "give people more money to pay the costs". The undersupply still exists and so the prices will just keep going up. The solution is build more bloody houses! |
The problem with building more houses is that the cost of labour, materials, rapidly reducing area to build, has made affordable housing impossible to achieve now.
A vicious circle. | |
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| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 15:43 - Nov 26 with 672 views | DJR |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 14:58 - Nov 26 by Deano69 |
Not sure what the objective was in its introduction, but certainly cannot see anything to evidence it has helped individuals that work, individuals that have retired, businesses, inflation, public services etc etc.
It has crucified hospitality, leisure, fixed income households, pensioners, small businesses, businesses reliant on fixed government contracts. I can see it making it difficult for school leavers to find work as they will have out-priced themselves due to a lack of experience and capability (so you may as well employ someone older but able to do the job from day one)
Anyone seeing double the disposable income since hourly rates have doubled in 10 years? No thought not.
Big success! [Post edited 26 Nov 15:00]
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Not sure you can put all our difficulties down to the minimum wage.
The main issue is that since 2008 average real wages have largely stalled, and are way behind what they would have been had they continued to rise at the rate they had done before then.
In that sense, we are mirroring something that has been going on in the States for much longer, and one factor is the loss of well-paid industrial or non-industrial jobs. To take a recent example, NHS England is getting rid of half its workforce (14,000 people). It's difficult to imagine that many will end up getting jobs that pay as well, and this is something that has been going on for a long time. [Post edited 26 Nov 15:45]
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| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 15:58 - Nov 26 with 619 views | mellowblue |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 15:37 - Nov 26 by Deano69 |
I cant disagree with your explanation on the need for it, but we are still being told the same levels of poverty exist. Plus, it has also dragged those with fixed incomes in to the same situation.
In addition, small businesses are virtually on their knees with regards to outgoings on salaries, taxation, insurances, energy, building rental, increased legislation etc etc. The vast majority of business owners are not in multi-million pound houses and spaffing money on yachts and hyper cars, most are eeking a living plus also carrying the burden of employees livelihoods. |
It is a concern as it coincided with a low-interest, lowish inflation time when minimum wage and welfare increases should have had an impact on poverty levels, but clearly haven't. And then recent inflationary spikes of a couple of years ago or so have certainly been damaging as wage inflation and energy and tax costs etc have filtered through to prices. | | | |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 18:05 - Nov 26 with 542 views | Guthrum |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 12:38 - Nov 26 by SuperKieranMcKenna |
But we already have proportionally higher housing costs than many of our peers, so people will struggle to absorb additional taxes. The lower and middle earner already pay income and NI tax proportionally higher than notoriously capitalist places like Denmark and Sweden. Government spending is back to Blair levels as a proportion of GDP so austerity is effectively over. SME’s are the country’s largest employers and we’ve already seen more go under post-COVID than during the financial crisis.
Productivity continues to bottom out - we need to create better jobs rather than just constantly raising employment costs. I can’t see that many are going to be happy with this budget and have little faith that public services are going to improve (waiting lists for the NHS continue to worsen). Let’s see where we end up in 12 months but I suspect employment levels are going to go in the wrong direction. [Post edited 26 Nov 13:12]
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That's really our own fault for using house prices as a main generator of wealth for the country. Also allowing buy-to-let get out of hand, particularly in university cities and towns, where burgeoning student numbers (to get fees in and keep the youth off the jobs market for a few extra years) have led to rental/buying deserts for working people.
The biggest problem with employment is that we have a population size based upon manually-operated heavy industry and mining in an era of increasing automation*. Perhaps we ought to have a Chinese-style scheme to get the birthrate down? Or go all-in on maximising the technologial approach and have a universal basic income?
* Which affects productivity in that there are fewer profit-generating jobs for the number of workers. |  |
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| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 19:13 - Nov 26 with 487 views | You_Bloo_Right |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 12:43 - Nov 26 by GlasgowBlue |
There was a politician who made the case for higher taxation to fund social care for the elderly. It cost her a 20 point lead in the polls and her majority. |
Correlation does not equal causation. |  |
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| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 19:20 - Nov 26 with 476 views | mellowblue |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 15:21 - Nov 26 by SuperKieranMcKenna |
We can’t afford the state pensions as they are since they (politicians) never had the foresight to put the money aside and grow it (as with a private pension). Even with a growing working working age population it’s becoming our second largest expenditure after the NHS.
We should be encouraging those with the means to save for their retirement and taking the burden off the state. Ridiculous short sighted cash grab that will cost us more in the long term. |
To be fair when the state pension became universal there was no pot of money available in those post WW2 days. It was paid out of tax income and this has never changed. | | | |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 19:26 - Nov 26 with 449 views | Pinewoodblue |
This is probably a daft question but is an increase in the minimum wage likely to reduce the numbers claiming benefit? |  |
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| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 19:28 - Nov 26 with 443 views | You_Bloo_Right |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 19:20 - Nov 26 by mellowblue |
To be fair when the state pension became universal there was no pot of money available in those post WW2 days. It was paid out of tax income and this has never changed. |
Those were more egalitarian days.
Now it's more, "Why should I help fund my parents' old age? What have they ever done for me?" | |
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| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 19:39 - Nov 26 with 418 views | Nthsuffolkblue |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 12:07 - Nov 26 by J2BLUE |
Agree. I assume the company I work for will just cover it by cutting future pay rises and not replacing staff who leave so it helps no one. |
If they won't replace staff who leave, does that mean those staff contribute nothing to the company? I get there are competing pressures and costs but, if you can manage well with fewer staff, why is the company employing the excess capacity? |  |
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| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 19:45 - Nov 26 with 410 views | redrickstuhaart |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 10:56 - Nov 26 by allezlesbleus |
Tax and NI contributions should only kick in above NMW levels.
Small businesses have suffered massively in the last 10 years and the NLW, NMW, increased NI levels and pension commitments have been some of the biggest issues. |
Ive said it before and will say it again.
If a business is paying wages at a level which are too low for someone realistically to live on, such that people are having to claim benefits as well- then the business is underpaying people and effectively getting a huge subsidy from the government.
My tax payments are going to pay benefits for people who are in work but paid too poorly to make ends meet. My tax payments are effectively ending up as profit for those businesses.
Unacceptable. The minimum wage needs to keep increasing until it is a living wage and companies profits trimmed accordingly where appropriate. | | | |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 20:12 - Nov 26 with 365 views | mellowblue |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 19:28 - Nov 26 by You_Bloo_Right |
Those were more egalitarian days.
Now it's more, "Why should I help fund my parents' old age? What have they ever done for me?" |
then it would have been:-
Son-"Why should I help fund my parents old age?"
Dad-"Cos I fought Jerry for 5 years to keep you safe, Son, that's why" | | | |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 21:05 - Nov 26 with 322 views | mellowblue |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 19:45 - Nov 26 by redrickstuhaart |
Ive said it before and will say it again.
If a business is paying wages at a level which are too low for someone realistically to live on, such that people are having to claim benefits as well- then the business is underpaying people and effectively getting a huge subsidy from the government.
My tax payments are going to pay benefits for people who are in work but paid too poorly to make ends meet. My tax payments are effectively ending up as profit for those businesses.
Unacceptable. The minimum wage needs to keep increasing until it is a living wage and companies profits trimmed accordingly where appropriate. |
If a person is working full time, the minimum wage would come to £25,000ish. That would have been a decent working wage a few years back. The less hours they work the more Universal Credit will top up their income, but that is not the fault of the employer if the employee works limited hours because of a child or caring etc. At the end of the day there has to be correlation between the wage of a job and the skill level involved. At the end of the day the jobs market decides on the wage (minimum wage and above). Re your point about minimum wage and living wage. Really there should be no need for both, having two clouds the water. They should be combined to form a minimum living wage, which would be the higher of the two. | | | |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 21:11 - Nov 26 with 310 views | You_Bloo_Right |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 20:12 - Nov 26 by mellowblue |
then it would have been:-
Son-"Why should I help fund my parents old age?"
Dad-"Cos I fought Jerry for 5 years to keep you safe, Son, that's why" |
Or, with or without a world war, there was a tad more respect and acceptance of collective responsibility. Or perhaps society was seen as a "thing" (pre-1987 obviously).
Who can say? | |
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| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 21:12 - Nov 26 with 302 views | redrickstuhaart |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 21:05 - Nov 26 by mellowblue |
If a person is working full time, the minimum wage would come to £25,000ish. That would have been a decent working wage a few years back. The less hours they work the more Universal Credit will top up their income, but that is not the fault of the employer if the employee works limited hours because of a child or caring etc. At the end of the day there has to be correlation between the wage of a job and the skill level involved. At the end of the day the jobs market decides on the wage (minimum wage and above). Re your point about minimum wage and living wage. Really there should be no need for both, having two clouds the water. They should be combined to form a minimum living wage, which would be the higher of the two. |
At the end of the day, if a person cant live on a full time wage, they are not being paid enough and the business is profiting from an effective subsidy from taxpayers. | | | |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 21:17 - Nov 26 with 298 views | J2BLUE |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 19:39 - Nov 26 by Nthsuffolkblue |
If they won't replace staff who leave, does that mean those staff contribute nothing to the company? I get there are competing pressures and costs but, if you can manage well with fewer staff, why is the company employing the excess capacity? |
It means that an average day which takes six members of staff will be forced to function with five (or less). Not doing the work isn't an option which leads to being constantly rushed and working through breaks etc.
Then you may have someone on annual leave. So six becomes five becomes four. Etc etc. Where I work takes six to do the work on an average day. We have had as few as three at times. No changes are ever made to the way the team works. We're just expected to deal with it.
If you don't mind me saying, your question is a bit naive. Upper management generally couldn't care less about piling more and more work on staff and just magically expecting it to be dealt with. It's a seven day a week operation and another department had two people until recently. I have previously worked in that same situation. Cutting staff costs is a decision made in a boardroom. The actual consequences are for others to deal with.
FWIW both companies were/are owned by billionaires. |  |
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| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 21:24 - Nov 26 with 284 views | You_Bloo_Right |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 21:12 - Nov 26 by redrickstuhaart |
At the end of the day, if a person cant live on a full time wage, they are not being paid enough and the business is profiting from an effective subsidy from taxpayers. |
Quite so,
For all that it may be required, the concept of in work benefit needs to be viewed as a benefit to the employer rather than the employee. [Post edited 26 Nov 21:29]
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| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 21:31 - Nov 26 with 267 views | Nthsuffolkblue |
| Going to be another big kick for small businesses today on 21:17 - Nov 26 by J2BLUE |
It means that an average day which takes six members of staff will be forced to function with five (or less). Not doing the work isn't an option which leads to being constantly rushed and working through breaks etc.
Then you may have someone on annual leave. So six becomes five becomes four. Etc etc. Where I work takes six to do the work on an average day. We have had as few as three at times. No changes are ever made to the way the team works. We're just expected to deal with it.
If you don't mind me saying, your question is a bit naive. Upper management generally couldn't care less about piling more and more work on staff and just magically expecting it to be dealt with. It's a seven day a week operation and another department had two people until recently. I have previously worked in that same situation. Cutting staff costs is a decision made in a boardroom. The actual consequences are for others to deal with.
FWIW both companies were/are owned by billionaires. |
And there it is at the end. Of course, there is a degree to which others pick up the slack for short periods of time as you describe but it isn't going to work if they reduce staffing like that. There will be profitability impacts due to sickness, drop in quality, missed deadlines, staff dissatisfaction, etc.
How did the company owners become billionaires? If they pay a few thousand more to employees and take even hundreds of thousands less out of the business, would they still be billionaires? How much money does someone need?
I recommend "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists" as a good read. | |
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