Re: Conservative policy in the last 2005 elections: no minimum wage.?

Question

It was not widely reported but one of the Conservative's policies at the last 2005 elections was getting rid of the minimum wage! Is this still their policy? If it is what planet are they on?

An example given by Clive Anderson, comedian and solicitor: ' a shoe shine boy in Indian undercuts prices and services cleaning shoes - he ends up spitting on the shoes to clean them in order to compete! Market rates if left to their own resources will run riot if not protected by laws. We will always need a minimum wage.

Please note the spell check does not work!

Answer 1

The rich elites would prefer that you worked for slave labor wages

Answer 2

Re: Conservative policy in the last 2005 elections: no minimum wage.?
It was not widely reported but one of the Conservatives policies at the last 2005 elections was getting rid of the minimum wage! Is this still their policy? If it is what planet are they on?

An example given by Clive Anderson, comedian and solicitor: ' a shoe shine boy in Indian undercuts prices and services cleaning shoes - he ends up spitting on the shoes to clean them in order to compete! Market rates if left to their own resources will run riot if not protected by laws. We will always need a minimum wage.

Please note the spell check does not work!

Answer 3

Well! how come we have managed without one in the past. Market forces always worked in the past, why not now? If your not satisfied with the pay, you don't do the job. If an employer and an employee negotiate a rate of pay between them, what has it got to do with anyone else. The minimim wage can get rid of jobs, because the market can't always stand it. In some trades (Apprenticeships) the employee is learning a valuable trade, and has to be taught. They have, in the past, been prepared to work for low wages, because they are not yet fully contributing. It was obvious, that once the government got the minimum wage passed in principle, they would keep jacking it up. And that is what they are doing.

Governments, and/or unions will always stick their noses into private arrangements if you let them.

The problem with the kind of thinking underpinning the minimum wage, is that it could be extended and applied more broadly across the workforce. That would be a sort of Communism by the back door. Because there are so many state handouts these days, the government thought that they had better bring in a minimum wage, in order to make it worthwhile to go out to work.

It's interesting that, whilst we are busy raising the minimum wage, we are importing a considerable amount of cheap, and often illegal labour from abroad.

You ask, "what planet are the Tories on": I would suggest, fully paid up members of the real world. How can politicians possibly evaluate a standard minimum rate of pay for diverse jobs? Often, the employer simply won't create the job.

I'm sorry but I can't see the relevance of a comedians anecdote about an Indian shoeshine boy.

I think that this government is destroying this country, and a change is vital.

I have just looked at some of your other respondents answers and, I have to say, it is the usual left wing piffle. Class predjudice and so called rich people. Who is spreading this nonsense? Of course, lefty teachers and lecturers.

Answer 4

Whilst a minimum wage is definitely needed it has to be a sensible one.

There seems to be a lot of people out there who want it to be much higher. If that happened all the other wage levels would rise and rampant inflation would be back hurting everyone and the economy.

The sensible level for a minimum wage would appear to be more than a single person would get on benefits. If it does not reflect that and the person continues to have to draw some level of benefit it means the taxpayer is subsidising the employer!

If a business cannot pay a reasonable wage without this sort of subsidy it is not viable and should close.

Spell checker gets overwhelmed. Answers needs to do something about it's limited capacity!

Answer 5

I don't know about the conservative policy, but since the discussion has moved to what the effets of minimum wages are, I'll give my opinion.

Economics being taught nowadays teaches something like that...

Generally minimum wages are higher than the wage that would 'clear the market'. Wage that 'clears the market' means the wage where the number of hours people want to work - supply - and the number of hours the producers want to employ people for - demand - is the same, hence equilibrium.

Comparing the hours worked at the low 'market clearning wage' and the minimum wage, employers would want to employ people for less hours (since it's now more expensive for them per hour) and workers would want to work for more hours (since it's more rewarding per hour). So the market will be constrained by how many hours employers want to use wich will be less than the number of hours worked under 'free market'.

Of course there are flaws in this argument...

This assumes perfect flow of information, and perfect competition. Some of the weak assumptions are as follows:
Employers are not colluding to keep wages low and are not big enough to affect the wages.
There is good flow of information such that everyone knows where jobs are available and at what wage.
People's abilities at different jobs are similar if not identical.
Jobs can easily be divided into hours.
People can easily 'flow' from one city to another as work place changes.
There are very low hiring and firing costs.
...
There are many more.

What we need to realise is that the economics being taught leads people to believe minimum wages are not right, and that people in favour of minimum wages are mis-informed. But it's the 'pseudo-economists' who are misinformed. Distortions in the markets have to be taken into account; oligopolistic powers have to be curbed unless worker-exploitation is acceptable. Minimum wages can be a crude tool, but they are not evil.

Answer 6

wow
I really wish they still taught something in school but the left agenda .
if you raise the minimum wage then the product cost more so the manufacture raises prices so he continues to make a profit thus higher prices so you still cannot afford it and now neither can other country's .so you no longer need to make it .now you don't have a job GOT IT
when you are in business it is to make a profit when you raise wages that only starts the process.when I was younger and started to work Wages was under a dollar and hour and a family of 5 could not eat $10 worth of grocery's in a week and mortgages were under a hundred a month for a monster home

Answer 7

I remember the arguments against a minimum wage before it was in force, and the fears I remember never materialised.
Freedom for the market, or for people to be enterprising - we need a minimum wage because the needs of the employee mean little to the average employer.
Would it be right to stop employers taking their businesses abroad though, to where they can get cheap labour?

Answer 8

The whole idea of the CON-servative Party for the masses leaves a lot to be desired! They are supported, paid for and run by the rich and powerful for the rich and powerful.Having recalled the last feeble efforts of CON-servatism under John (Screw Me Rigid) Major, the poor have had their meagre benefits taken away from them, schools were closed down by the hundreds with classes doubled in size because of teacher redundancies, hospitals were closed by the hundreds with thousands of nurses,doctors and specialists chucked out thus increasing waiting lists wholdesale,our money went down the pan to pay for the mistakes of taking Britain into the ERM which failed spectacularly costing everyone in the UK thousands,workers rights went out of the window as more anti-people laws were introduced,and,as for the minimum wage? Forget it! God help us all if the CON-servatives were ever to get in again. (Hang on,they ARE in,it's called NEW LABOUR!) Do we really want all our schools,hospitals,public services decimated again? Clive Anderson talks a load of bollox and shoud go back to Australia from whence he came!

Answer 9

Sounds good in theory doesn't it. But you have to consider many businesses don't pay minimum wage now. Restaurants for example!

If the did away with the minimum wage the repubs would want people to work for free just so they could say they had a job!!

Answer 10

I agree with 'enigma vara' I don't really have much time for the 'new' labour party but as far as I am concerned my thoughts are still these:-
The Conservative mob are funded by the CBI, the CBI employ us they also represent business, the aim of business is to make profit, not to employ us, if they could make profit without us they would do so!
The Labour party (new or old) are funded by the trade union movement who's job it is (or was) to see we get a fair wage!!
I dread to think what would happen if 'Maggies mob' ever got back in power! Bunch of complete upper class tossers!! As for scrapping the minimum wage, of course they would, they would in fact do away with wages altogether if they could get away with it!!
Hope this helps??

Answer 11

People should be paid what they're worth. If they're worth two dollars an hour or twenty dollars an hour then so be it. There should be some protection against underpaying people, but the minimum wage has done little against poverty. It still exists and for other reasons besides whether a minimum wage existed or not.