Spacedone wrote:Bizarre situation this morning seeing Labour being kicked on Twitter by some prominent left-wingers (Artist Taxi Driver for example) for pledging to increase the minimum wage to something close to the Living Wage (accounting for inflation) by 2020. Reaction is "£8? Is that all? We want £10! NOW!!!"
As one person on ATD tweet says, Labour are pledging to increase the NMW three times as fast as it has increased 2010-2015.
It's the same on the G. And they are all missing the point.
What Labour are actually saying is that they want to lift the share of wages more equitably. They are planning to introduce legislation which pegs lower wages to a percentage of the median - in other words, if the median rises, the lowest rises with it at an ever-increasing percentage.
If they did this right now, NMW would be £8/hour - ie. 58% of the median.
It will be £6.50/hour from 1st.October. That's 54% of the median now.
This would represent an increase in NMW of at least 4% but it would increase as time goes on, because as the lowest rate rises, so does the median. As the median rises, so does the lowest. In time, they will become closer.
NMW rose in October 2010 from £5.80 to £5.93; in 2011 to £6.08; in 2012 to £6.19; 2013 to £6.31.
The rises under the coalition are - £0.13p; £0.15p; £0.11p; £0.12p; and in October £0.19p.
At no point since the coalition took office has NMW risen by more than 3%.
Some rates, eg. for people under 18, were frozen during this time on occasion.
Labour's proposal would mean a minimum 4% increase to start with and better as time goes on due to the peg to median wages.
That strikes me as fair - although I think there should also be a limit on rises for higher earners too.
Perhaps this is all a bit too complicated for the ranters.....