Minimum Wage: What's the Other Argument?

[Silurian]

Prices in London are a far bit higher than the rest of the UK as noted in the Real living wage.
The UK Government National Living Wage of £7.20 would just about be ok if you have low outgoings and more than 40 hours per week.

From BBC

The living wage is an informal benchmark, not a legally enforceable minimum level of pay. It will rise to £8.25 from £7.85. In London it is £9.15

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34692382

 

[Daw]

Does that include rental accommodation or one is supposed to live in their own place?

 

[Flying Pig]

I was in London and briefly in Cambridge in 2005 and got my pints of John Smith's at £2.5 IIRC everywhere (it somehow tasted differently in different places though). Did the prices change that much since then?

Last year I was in central London at a not-very-fancy pub, ordered a £7 meal and a pint of run-of-the-mill beer, and was charged £11. I thought they'd got the numbers wrong!

 

[Samson]

Last year I was in central London at a not-very-fancy pub, ordered a £7 meal and a pint of run-of-the-mill beer, and was charged £11. I thought they'd got the numbers wrong!

Yesterday I was at a not at all fancy hotel in rural oxfordshire and I was charged £4-70 for a 500ml bottle of very ordinary beer. £4 in central London is not bad at all.

 

[Silurian]

Does that include rental accommodation or one is supposed to live in their own place?

In the UK someone earning £7.20 per doing 40ish hours a week would take home in the region of £250 a week after tax. If they are renting they may get £10 to £20 towards their rent, at present.

Rent varies quite a bit but you can get bedsits for £100 pw plus £15 property tax in most parts of the country. So if you can find somewhere cheap you could have £150pw left for all your other bills, transport to work, clothes, food and a small amount of entertainment. You will be able to save a little bit of money for a very cheap holiday or a rainy day but you will never be able to save for a deposit on a house in most places in the UK.

 

[Daw]

Sounds survivable.

 

[Silurian]

It should be survivable if many unexpected expenses do not happen at once.

For example private renting in the UK is nearly all on very short tenancies, often 6 months. Good landlords will just renew the tenancy but you never know how long you will be in a place. So you may have unexpected moving costs.

 

[sophie]

I was in London and briefly in Cambridge in 2005 and got my pints of John Smith's at £2.5 IIRC everywhere (it somehow tasted differently in different places though). Did the prices change that much since then?

When I was in London in 2012 it was usually roundabout £5-£5.50 for a pint, ~3 for a half.

 

[Zelig]

On topic of automation, the McDonald's by my office recently renovated, adding four touchscreen payment kiosks, and leaving only a single human cashier.

On further topic -

When I first started snowboarding, lift attendants would manually check your lift tickets when boarding the lift.

Lift attendants were soon after given wireless barcode scanners to scan everyone's lift ticket when queuing for the lift.

Now, lift attendants are being replaced with RFID-detecting gates which open to allow you to board the lift when they detect the presence of a pass.

 

[Commodore]

On further topic -

When I first started snowboarding, lift attendants would manually check your lift tickets when boarding the lift.

Lift attendants were soon after given wireless barcode scanners to scan everyone's lift ticket when queuing for the lift.

Now, lift attendants are being replaced with RFID-detecting gates which open to allow you to board the lift when they detect the presence of a pass.

All of which were improvements that made the operation of the business better for both customers and the owners. I think many people forget that the responsibility of a business is to provide a good or service to customers in the most efficient way possible so as to maximize profit, not to provide employment opportunities to the population. I'm not saying you think that, I'm just using your post to point out this flaw in many people's logic.

It really bugs me when people act like they have a fundamental right to job, and that businesses should keep inefficient or unnecessary positions around just for the sake of providing someone with a paycheck.

 

[Farm Boy]

It really bugs me when people act like they have a fundamental right to job

Why does it bother you? Because they're obviously mistaken on the facts of how it works, or because you don't think people should have the right to meaningful, in some fashion, and compensated work? Because they certainly should. If a society cannot find enough things to do for it's population that are worth enough to disgorge some form of remuneration, then I'd say that society and/or governance is failing it's people on a fundamental level and should be replaced by nice means if possible, by less nice means if necessary.

 

[El_Machinae]

The increase in automation can very easily be a good thing. It can lead to a drop in prices, which frees up cash to buy other new and old goods and services.

The downside is the unemployment created by the replacement. Ostensibly, the ideal situation involves re-tasking that person to a new employment, then they too benefit whenever automation reduces the cost of something they buy.

It's only when you get runaway unemployment trends that there's a real problem. When the retasked person suffers an effective reduction in their wage, for example. Or when the unemployment happens more rapidly than people can be retasked.

 

[Commodore]

Why does it bother you? Because they're obviously mistaken on the facts of how it works, or because you don't think people should have the right to meaningful, in some fashion, and compensated work?

The former. People seem to think it is the responsibility of privately owned businesses to provide them with gainful employment. I'm sorry, but I just don't subscribe to that line of thinking. I, as a business owner, have absolutely zero responsibility or obligation to make room in my business for employees. If one cannot find a business willing to employ them, then they have to try and create their own job or find a way to make themselves more desirable for businesses.

Basically, my job as a business owner is to provide the best possible service for my customers and to make money for myself so I can support my family. It is not my job to to provide someone else with the means or the opportunity to do the same for their family.

 

[Flying Pig]

A person having a right to a job doesn't translate into any given business owner having a responsibility to give them a job.

 

[dutchfire]

On further topic -

When I first started snowboarding, lift attendants would manually check your lift tickets when boarding the lift.

Lift attendants were soon after given wireless barcode scanners to scan everyone's lift ticket when queuing for the lift.

Now, lift attendants are being replaced with RFID-detecting gates which open to allow you to board the lift when they detect the presence of a pass.

That's been a thing for at least a decade.

 

[Zelig]

Weird, I'm at world-class resorts on a regular basis and only saw it for the first time this winter.

 

[Commodore]

A person having a right to a job doesn't translate into any given business owner having a responsibility to give them a job.

Tell that to all the jobseekers out there who routinely bash businesses for not hiring them. There is definitely an entitlement mentality among jobseekers that makes them think they are entitled to gainful employment at a living wage, and businesses are somehow violating their rights by not giving them one. It's an absolutely ridiculous mindset to have.

 

[illram]

Weird, I'm at world-class resorts on a regular basis and only saw it for the first time this winter.

Yeah that's been a thing for a while at US mountains. We're ahead of the curve in job killing I guess. *clears throat* excuse me I mean freedom.

 

[Farm Boy]

The former. People seem to think it is the responsibility of privately owned businesses to provide them with gainful employment.

Fair enough! I'm thinking in hindsight that 3 years as an entry level Human Resources "Employment Associate" was fairly warping. I mean, yes, I found annoying the man who copy/pasted his "resume" off of the job qualifications I wrote and posted online then accused me of knowing his race(by divining it from entrails or something) and threatening to sue two weeks after I round filed his application. But I also found tremendously irritating the decision to drop the hiring process on a 50 year applicant who had a "DWI on his record from 1976" and a clean record since(this was in 2006) because because when a hotter female applicant showed up. So, !eh! I guess?

 

[Manfred Belheim]

A person having a right to a job doesn't translate into any given business owner having a responsibility to give them a job.

If no one has any obligation to create jobs, then in what way is this right to have a job upheld?