Labours National Minimum Wage

Comment on Why I’ll Never Vote Conservative at a General Election by David.

Labours National Minimum Wage

That’s a really good red herring Terry. your argument is some people don’t get the national minimum wage (which is illegal), so the entire minimum wage was a bad idea!

Hmm, nice way to twist the argument and not answer the real question, would the Tories have ever brought in a National Minimum Wage? And the answer is almost certainly NO.

And is the national minimum wage at risk with a new Tory government? And the answer is possibly, there’s a group of Tory backbenchers that tried to bring in a bill that would allow employers to NOT higher people who refused to work below national minimum wage! Had that legislation gone through (obviously blocked by a Labour majority in government) it would have made the concept of a national minimum wage a joke.

I’ll play with your red herring though, love looking at these sorts of arguments and poking holes in them.

Lets take the Conservative figures for those paid below national minimum wage as fact, even though we all know the Conservatives are not very good with getting their figures right.

“the number of people paid less than the minimum wage has doubled from 248,000 in 2005 to 445,000 in 2008.”

Would be nice to have access to where the Tories got these numbers from so we can see who the people are: does this include illegal workers or cash in hand workers for example?

Anyway, lets assume they are legit figures.

I realise the dates don’t match up, but I’m using it for emphasis (will be a little off the real figures) http://www.hrmguide.co.uk/jobmarket/unemployment.htm says “Nearly 29 million people were in work in November (2009) to January (2010) according to the labour force survey (LFS)”

So around 29,000,000 people are employed (at the end of 2009). Of those 445,000 where illegally paid below the national minimum wage (in 2008) according to the Tories.

Can you work out the % number of people paid below national minimum wage Terry?

It’s around 1.5%.

Not exactly widespread abuse and as mentioned earlier would be nice to know who these people are. I would expect these are mostly illegal immigrants and cash in hand workers as they tend to be paid below national minimum wage (cash in hand).

If I’m right on the illegal immigrants part this is not a failing on the national minimum wage legislation, but businesses hiring workers illegally which the government is cracking down on with up to £10,000 fines per illegal worker found (form what I’ve seen on TV, the average fine if around the £5,000 level)!

This is a red herring and you know it Terry.

Lets imagine the Tories won the 1997 election and had stayed in power ever since. I’d have bet my left nut on them not bringing in a national minimum wage, so where would workers be today?

Labours made some calculations on their site that estimates without a national minimum wage people on low pay in 1997 (£1.20 an hour) would be paid around £1.38 an hour today!

I think this is an under estimate based on inflation, I worked the numbers out https://general-election-2010.co.uk/is-the-national-minimum-wage-safe-under-a-conservative-government-poll/ and came to a figure of £1.60 an hour. Check the page above and do the calculation yourself.

I’m self employed and earn way more than the national minimum wage, but I remember when I was 16 years old earning £1 an hour and working 50 to 55 hours a week on a road (civil engineers assistant) and a low wage like that meant I couldn’t spend much money, which meant despite working hard I wasn’t stimulating the economy by spending money on products and services.

Do you really want a country where workers are paid less than £2 an hour, because that’s where we would be today had the Conservatives won all recent elections?

When it comes to the national minimum wage. I have nothing but good things to say about the Labour party.

I am so thankful that it looks like we won’t be getting a Conservative majority on May 6th and the national minimum wage will be protected from the uncaring Tories for a further 5 years.

David