UK to receive "living wage" by 2020 £9 per hour minimum wage.

originally posted by: 321Go

originally posted by: nonspecific
a reply to: 321Go

The question I was asking was not about benifits and sustainability but the issue of minimum wage and tax credits combined with the cost of living.

The average wage is just that an average and not really an effective means to assess the situation.

The latest figures I could find suggest that around 5% or 1.3 million people in the uk are on minimum wage of £6.50.

Thats around 11,700 per year after deductions. this is why the current tax credit system is needed.

True, but the point I was trying to make is that for every one claimant, several ordinary working people have to support them, on average.

Well not really because you are not factoring in the amount of tax money that is used providing for the average tax payer in question.

How many average taxpayers does it take to pay for one corrupt politician?

How many average taxpayers does it take to fund another war?

a reply to: nonspecific

i said on skynews article that this is rubbish!

In 5 years time everything else would have gone up too, so in effect you won't be saving anymore than you are now.

originally posted by: nonspecific

originally posted by: grainofsand

originally posted by: nonspecific
Next time you go for a pint have a think how much it will cost you when the barmans on £9 per hour, or the waitress or builders mate building your nice new extension.

No labourers in my area get out of bed for less than £60 cash a day right now, except a few Eastern Europeans I know.

What might well happen is that labourers demand more in a knock on effect where the thinking would be why the # should I bust my balls shoveling and digging etc when the pay is the same as someone on a till at Tesco.
...but then more Eastern Europeans will fill their places.

I think thats what will happen, £9ph is 72 per day and although thats not a lot if you think of all the guys that have a monkey on hand to mix stuff and run back and forth to the van fetching tools and holding ladders there going to have to think twice or put there rates up.

I work for guys at less than £9 per hour as if I don't then the jobs are not viable to anyone including the customer.

Totally understand, but everyone knows the Eastern Europeans drove down the prices to charge for building jobs, everyone knows it, even the deniers.
I bet Hungarians and Romanians are all jumping in glee at the news regarding minimum wage going to £7.20 next year, plenty more money to buy a home back in the motherland.
This budget is not going to help stop the immigration problem, quite the opposite as far as I see it.

*Edit*
The minimum wage does not cover self employed folk so the Hungarians/Poles/Romanians will still undercut for building jobs.
It's a #ing disgrace.

a reply to: grainofsand

I left school at the height of labors red reign and I kid you not there were a dozen or so girls trying to get pregnant so they could go straight onto welfare!

In the weekly careers hour we had they used to state happily they were having babies as a "career".

I would have slashed the whole child benefit to be honest as I dont see why our tax subsidies should pay for people to have babies full stop. Want kids plan for them.

a reply to: grainofsand

The worst part of it is that round here most of the eastern Europeans have gone now but the legacy of cheap work remains.

I know plasterers and chippys that only charge £120 a day because thats all people expect to pay so imagine having to pay £72 for a labourer and cover all the costs. It would be easier to be the labourer and let the some other guy deal with the hastle.

I've never been sure about self employed day rates and legal minimum wage.

a reply to: crazyewok

Totally agreed.
Back in the 90's women were forced to start looking for work for their benefits when their youngest child reached 16.
There was an enormous problem of women falling pregnant with another child before that 16th birthday of their youngest so they could stay on benefits without looking for work.

This will be exactly the same, I guarantee a load of lazy bastards have already decided to pop their 3rd child out before the new rules kick in.
This change should have a start date 11 months from now in my opinion, with a month of advertising on 'This Morning' 'Loose Women' or 'The Jeremy Kyle Show' and 'Hollyoaks' right now so it's tough luck if they aren't careful.
Don't have a child if you can't afford to raise it.

originally posted by: nonspecific
I've never been sure about self employed day rates and legal minimum wage.

If you are self employed but not covered by the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) regarding tax etc then you can work for however much or little you like.
It is how the Eastern Europeans did it.
Four to a room in a rented house, £50 for a ten hour day. How anyone expected an average Brit builder to compete with that I don't know.

With the new minimum wage it can only attract more to our shores.

a reply to: grainofsand

At £9ph hour for unskilled labour where even speaking english is not required I cannot imagine it any other way.

On reflection maybe I should have voted for Nigel like you suggested...

originally posted by: Metallicus
Why not just give everyone a yearly stipend equal to a living wage? We should quit pretending any work is required for this money and just give it away. It isn't like the jobs we are talking about are skilled or even needed.

ETA: We should give everyone free school, a place to live and a car as well. Stop dancing around the issue and ask for what you really want. At least you could be honest.

Exactly, low income jobs aren't needed. They should just build stores, have the truck drivers who bring in the items just dump them randomly in the store. When customers come in, they grab what they want off the floor, and just leave the money somewhere. And when you go to a restaurant or fast food place, the raw ingredients will all be dumped by the back door, and you can make it yourself, and then leave the correct amount of money on the front counter. Let's get rid of pointless jobs!

a reply to: nonspecific

Totally agree, and for the record, I predict a spike in 3rd child births before the new Tax credit rules kick in by 2017, and I predict a further increase in over 25's from Eastern Europe when the minimum wage rises to £7.20 next year.

...we've got the referendum coming soon though, so unless we get a decent deal allowing us to control EU immigration then you clearly know what I say - Vote out mate.

For clarification at the current rate of £6.50 or £12675 total yearly deductions are £968.60

At £9.00ph or £17550 and the current tax bracket they will be £2528.80

So an increase of £3315pa or £69 per week.

So whatever happens with tax credits and inflation and it's not that great a difference.

a reply to: nonspecific

This is an excellent site if you ever want a quick, accurate, and up to date online calculator for tax...
www.listentotaxman.com

a reply to: grainofsand

Thats where I did the maths mate.

Not that I need it I'm self employed and don't earn enough to pay tax anyway.

originally posted by: Metallicus
Why not just give everyone a yearly stipend equal to a living wage? We should quit pretending any work is required for this money and just give it away. It isn't like the jobs we are talking about are skilled or even needed.

ETA: We should give everyone free school, a place to live and a car as well. Stop dancing around the issue and ask for what you really want. At least you could be honest.

Sarcasm

You mean we don't need 5 Wal-Mart's, 10 of every imaginable fast food places, and 25 gas stations within 5 miles of where I live? All in the name of job creation? - End Sarcasm

It would actually be better to send people a check to their homes than to open another useless retail outlet. The amount of resources we waste to create retail jobs is insane.

We have an energy problem, shut down 50% of all retail outlets and send checks to the unemployed homes. This is actually environmentally more feasible than continuing to create useless retail jobs for the sake of some unemployment number.

a reply to: nonspecific

Haha, fair one, it's not the prettiest of interfaces or web design either, but they are bang on accurate, and I suggest it to employed friends if they want to check things or are considering a new job.
I'm self employed as well, but I do pay tax after first rinsing every deductable expense I can possibly verify.

...I worked out recently that I've paid over £120,000 in Income Tax so far in my post-school life, not counting National Insurance or Council Tax, and I've claimed no more than a total of £4000 in benefits at various times over the same period.
I'm nothing special, just not a lazy bastard.

I'm self employed right now, but if work gets hard to find I'll be straight to the employment agency for a crap temporary job packing frozen pasties into boxes or whatever, straight away.
All those who cry "Oh there aren't any jobs" I ask, so why the # do hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans move here to fill the vacancies?

There are plenty of jobs, just too many lazy British folk who prefer to chill on benefits instead.

*Edit*
I've got a big job on for the next 3 or 4 weeks so I'm tied up right now, but I've been thinking that I haven't done a crappy minimum wage job for a while so I may pop down the local agency when I have a free week and see how quickly I start work after first contacting them.
I'm easy, frozen pasty place, gutting fish, packing shellfish, whatever, I've done my fair share of crap jobs in my life.
Hmm, yep, an experiment I think that could be an interesting thread, take home pay £225 for a 37.5 hour week, plus extra hours if wanted, yep, I can live on that because I'm not stupid enough to have any debts for lame 'shiny things'..
...sorry to go off-topic, just sharing my musings because I'm sick of hearing lazy mates say there is no work out there.

originally posted by: nonspecific
a reply to: grainofsand

Thats where I did the maths mate.

Not that I need it I'm self employed and don't earn enough to pay tax anyway.

Interesting....theres a big difference between not payimg yourself enough in salary to pay income tax, and not earning enough. I also pay no income tax, and still seem to pay 50k a year in tax.

maybe we have the same accountant

a reply to: idmonster

We declare our income annually if self employed in the UK. The first £10,600 per year is free of tax so I'm assuming the OP is below that threshold.
He will of course pay other taxes such as National Insurance, Council Tax, Value Added Tax on many purchases and the rest, but not Income Tax.

Hope that is a helpful explanation as far as I understood the OP's comments.

a reply to: grainofsand

And this, i believe is where working tax credits is a good thing.

Set the minimum wage slighty higher than anyone on benfits...any benfits could possibly get. (That may well mean lowering or removing some, including breeders benefit) Then take my tax and use at least 80% of it to ensure that those on minimum wage are made up to living wage.

I pay a # load of tax, and the only thing that annoys me about it, is how its speant.

originally posted by: 321Go
The rich get richer, and the poor poorer. That is true.

No it's not. The rich may get richer (and the top 1% in the UK pay a third of all UK income tax, so fund half of the NHS), but the poor also get richer. It's a statistician's dream, but show me the evidence that "poor" people have less today than they had ten years ago.

a reply to: grainofsand

Yep, im in the yuk.

the op could be billing his customers upto 80k a year and paying himself a minimum wage of 10k. This puts him under the threshold for income tax, and on the limit of NI.

As a company director of his own firm, he could t.hen pay himself a further 35k a year in dividends, paying no more tax, and another 40 while only paying 20%

Avoidance/evasion. you decide