For example, some fruit drinks, carbonated drinks, cereal and ice cream all have VAT of 20% – which could have their VAT reduced.

Cue headlines: Government advised to increase obesity rate!

i) All natural healthy food is zero-rated
ii) This is just taking us back to the old days before New Labour
iii) Energy bills are inflated by the ridiculously high “Feed-in tariff” for solar power which is about five times the standard rate for delivered power to homes and more than six times the rate for power supplied to the grid by conventional power stations. This is the poor subsidising those well-off who have south-facing roofs.
iv) The administration cost of this would wipe out any benefit: I ask you – a personalised carbon trading scheme for 60+ million individuals?
v) There is vast amounts of evidence showing that the NMW has made things worse for the poor who now have no job at all instead of a low-paid job. Just look at the rise in unemployment!
So the five are one “Switch to unhealthy foods”, two “reverse New Labour legislation” and two utterly stupid suggestions that make everyone poorer.
OK – so what are you trying to do?

An individual is considered to be in relative poverty if it lives in a household whose
income is below 60% of the median in that year, and in absolute poverty if it
lives in a household whose real-terms income is below 60% of the 2010–11
median.

Since the IFS definition of absolute poverty is so stupid, it matters nothing how many extra people suffer it. My definition of absolute poverty is when someone can’t afford to feed, clothe and house themselves, however the IFS definition demeans the whole concept.

Incidentally, I’ve thought of something the government could that would be more helpful to the economy than all of the ideas in the OP.

They could do nothing.

“There is vast amounts of evidence showing that the NMW has made things worse for the poor who now have no job at all instead of a low-paid job. ”

No, there was a footnote to a report on its impact that mentioned a minority of employers had cut hours for existing staff as a result of pressures following the introduction of NMW. This has then been used as the “vast evidence” by opponents of NMW like Dillow and Worstall, despite the fact the very report they cited had a different overall conclusion. Its impact was small and had both positive and negative marginal impacts (a trade off), but was largely irrelevant when compared with the wider economic climate that explains both the drop and rise in unemployment over the past 15 years.

I’d agree that it isn’t the right time to raise the NMW, but it really isn’t the most important factor in explaining unemployment.

John77 @ 2

v) There is vast amounts of evidence showing that the NMW has made things worse for the poor who now have no job at all instead of a low-paid job. Just look at the rise in unemployment!

Hang on though, where is this ‘vast’ amount of evidence? In fact surely we have had record levels of employment since the introduction of the minimum wage? It is not unusual for employment to go down during a downturn in the economy, is it?

Surely if the NMW had a real impact on jobs, we would see empty shelves in supermarkets, people with uncut hair and burger kings/mcdonalds shutting down because those are the type of jobs that are typically done at the minimum wage? Surely Tesco would have everything on large pallets and shipped direct from the lorry onto the shop floor if the minimum wage was destroying jobs?

Is it possible that you are just another screaming Tory who wants to blame those on the lowest incomes for the problems caused by the 1%?

@John77 – Not convinced your points are all relevant to the article, but will respond anyway:

1. Taxation on food needs to be looked at very carefully as often it can regressively affect disadvantaged people. In this case, not sure a VAT of 20% on some cereals for example is really justified.
2. This point was aimed at trying to find a cost effective approach for sharing childcare, which could work alongside things like SureStart (which am a supporter of by the way).
3. You have made a point which doesn’t relate to the above article. No reference was made to feed in tariffs for solar power in the article. My suggestion was tackling supply side cost issues, your point refers to tax breaks for certain types of power.
4.The article says a system “should be closely looked at”. Part of this means developing a cost effective model.
5. There is some anecdotal evidence backing up your comment. However you make a dangerous point which promotes a race to the bottom and disadvantages the most vulnerable people in society.
* Finally – none of the points made reverse any New Labour legislation.

@Pagar – Believe that comparing situation of people is important when looking at poverty. Particularly when you consider the points made in The Spirit Level – which show that more unequal societies make everyone worse off.

“The rollout of smart meters and encouraging take up of insulation will help save money, but these do not mitigate against rising energy prises.”

How does making energy supplies unreliable and forcing poor people not to use utilities during the periods they’re awake and at home “help”?

Moreover, for people in shared properties landlords routinely refuse to let any work be done, and they get hammered on the bills. Energy companies should not require landlord permission to do the work. (To avoid any issue with cowboys, ONLY energy companies…)

@2 – Ah yes, employers should be able to dump even MORE external costs onto the state, and push people further into poverty!

@3 – Then a LOT more people are in poverty than that description of absolute poverty…

5. Jim

” Surely Tesco would have everything on large pallets and shipped direct from the lorry onto the shop floor if the minimum wage was destroying jobs? ”

Tesco as far as I know pay all of their quarter of a million UK employees above the NMW, Jim.

1. Shopping – The most important item – food is already zero-rated.

2. Childcare – This never used to be a problem until we all became obsessed with CRB checks. We had a baby-sitting circle on a swap basis – no money. It’s apparently illegal now.

3. Energy bills – Kick all the green subsidies to rich people with windmills and solar into touch. Stop all the green stealth taxes.

4. Transport – Only 15% of passenger-kilometres are by public transport and it’s probably a lot lower outside the home counties. Cheaper petrol and diesel is the answer.

5. Minimum Wage – Sweden doesn’t have a minimum wage. Unemployment is lower and the gap between rich and poor is half that of the UK. A higher minimum wage will mean more on the dole. What we need is for those on the minimum wage to pay less tax – same for pensioners.

Richard W @ 8

Yes, quite a bit more, if what I am told is correct, around seven quid for many of their entry level staff? If Tesco can afford to pay above the minimum wage and still make a huge (a billion and a half last year, I think) profit, I cannot see too many people losing their jobs over such a paltry amount of six quid an hour.

Northern Worker @ 9

2. Childcare – This never used to be a problem until we all became obsessed with CRB checks. We had a baby-sitting circle on a swap basis – no money. It’s apparently illegal now.

You need to find the fuckwit that told you that and have a laugh at him. So it is illegal for someone to look after a child? Fucking rubbish and repeating shite doesn’t make it any more real.

5. Minimum Wage – Sweden doesn’t have a minimum wage. Unemployment is lower and the gap between rich and poor is half that of the UK

What are typical wage rates in Sweden and how do they relate to here? Some examples of say shelf stackers, hairdressers etc would be nice. Thanks.

A higher minimum wage will mean more on the dole.

Will it? How? If people get better wages won’t they spend it on goods in the shops

Jim @10

Swearing and ad hominem aside, thanks for your input.

My facts about child care might be wrong, but my point was that we didn’t pay anything despite the wife and I working – me full-time and she part-time. We earned points baby sitting for others and swapped these as required. This system was used for all of our four children.

Minimum wage. How much should it be? £10 per hour? £15? £20? Wouldn’t it be better to have no minimum wage and set the personal limit for income tax at £12,000? And if the wage on offer is too little, people don’t have to take the job. How many people actually work for the minimum wage

@ Leon

Then a LOT more people are in poverty than that description of absolute poverty…

Or almost nobody is………….

NW @ 12

This system was used for all of our four children.

And? Your point being what exactly? That because sitting for each other helped you it should help everybody? Do you make room for the possibility that such solutions will not help everybody because in a Country of 30 million families, not everyone’s circumstances will be exactly like yours?

This blogg entry is called ‘Five ways the govt could help squeezed families’, not how can we help ‘Northen worker’s and people with similar circumstances families’, so I really don’t understand why you should tell us about your circumstances, if the point you are addressing didn’t fit your circumstances.

Minimum wage.

Hmm, still no comeback on Sweden? Safe to say we are not exactly comparing like with like then?

Wouldn’t it be better to have no minimum wage and set the personal limit for income tax at £12,000?

Nope crap idea, we do not need the poorest people in society to be exploited.

And if the wage on offer is too little, people don’t have to take the job.

And if people turned down that job and stayed on the dole? You would support that decision?

How many people actually work for the minimum wage

What difference does that make? You said a higher minimum wage would mean job losses, but if hardly anyone is actually on the minimum wage, how could that be true?

@11 – No, it’s better NOT to primarily give middle-class workers a tax break when the concept is to help the poor. And yes, they do if they’re on JSA. The compulsion element means that racing to the minimum wage is very, very viable.

http://www.lowpay.gov.uk/lowpay/report/pdf/Revised_Report_PDF_with_April_date.PDF

VERY comprehensive;

Figure 2.1; ~4% of jobs

I know this will go whistling over the heads of some of you, but there is no evidence that you can produce that changes the fact that minimum wage laws cause unemployment. This is true by definition and cannot be refuted.

What the government should do to help the poor is to stop taking so much of their money. Cut taxes across the board, and if you really want to target the poor, then cut tobacco duty first, because the poor smoke more than the rich.

@15 – Right. And Australia is a disaster zone.

Wait, it’s not. Keep up the propaganda against the working class, for those hard-working 1% Corporatists you shill for.

Cut tax, dump far more externalities onto the poor as an ever-higher poverty premium, see their standard of living decline still further. All part of your masters masterplan.

@ 16, I suppose you think high taxes improve the standard of living of the poor? Yeah, right. If you’re on a low wage, the tax you pay is often the difference between making ends meet and slipping further down. I know what that’s like, so don’t give me this bollocks that poor people should be happy because they can’t afford to even buy a packet of cigarettes or a pint of beer without worrying about it, or they can’t afford to run a car, because £20 worth of petrol costs £50 because of tax.

The corporatists get rich from the taxes and the inflation, which is another form of tax, and dummies like you think the big government’s gonna save us all, when they’re the ones doing the robbing for the corporatists.

I’ve been out for over six hours to attend a work-related presentation.
So, although I should normally answer each comment that is too much.
The sympathetic view must be that Jim is a twit; the alternative is that he is deliberately saying stuff that he should know is untrue.
Northern Worker is simply stating facts and there is no justification for Jim and Leon Wolfson to slag him off because he points out stuff that does not fit their dogma.
Mike is making some civilised sensible points and merits a reply (at this time of night my reply may not be quite as good as normal)
i) When someone (I think it was food standards agency but I cannot remember after nearly sixty years) investigated the Kelloggs adverts they found that most of the nutrition from eating breakfast cereal came from the milk. So if you oppose VAT on cereal it is because you’ve been conned.
ii) I don’t oppose “Surestart” but “Northern Worker”‘s baby-sitting circle is much more efficient than any system that involves bureaucracy. When our kids were small my wife belonged to a baby-sitting circle for evenings (my role was to look after ours but very very occasionally watched kids who knew me as well). These work if the families know each other and in those cases far better than the bureaucratic systems imposed by New Labour. Under the new rules the lady (my wife’s closest friend within walking distance) who looked after our elder 1+ son while I drove my wife to hospital and waited for our younger son to be born could no longer baby-sit except under various condition and my wife would be expected to drive herself to hospital!! Yes, I do want a reversal of New Labour legislation on this.
iii) The solar-power feed-in tariffs are an increasingly significant contributor to the rise in energy bills. I wasn’t saying that they are the only cause of the rise but they are an UNNECESSARY cause. A small mutual is a good idea in theory but is not going to have a significant impact upon prices. BTW your article talks about demand-side cost issues, the insanely high solar power FIT is a supply-side issue. The insanely high FIT *is* New Labour legislation that I want to reverse to help the poor.
iv) Yes, the article says that it should be looked at closely but I could take off my specs and look at it from the other end of the field and it would still be visibly a waste of money
v) You take the NMW as a moral issue: I prefer to make a moral issue of making sure that everyone has enough to eat and secondly that they should be able to live decently. Once you have a welfare state this is obviously divorced from the minimum wage but that always the case even before the War. A lad or lass living at home with parents does not need the same income as a youngish man supporting a wife and toddler and babe to achieve a basic decent standard.

10. Jim

You need to find the fuckwit that told you that and have a laugh at him. So it is illegal for someone to look after a child? Fucking rubbish and repeating shite doesn’t make it any more real.

You may want to see what the penalties are for looking after a child without a CRB check. I have no idea what the law is but I would be surprised if it wasn’t a crime.

And the OP needs to think about the costs of performing some 20 million police checks to make sure no one looking after anyone else’s child is a sex offender. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say, the costs of ticking all the right boxes.

TT @ 15

I know this will go whistling over the heads of some of you, but there is no evidence that you can produce that changes the fact that minimum wage laws cause unemployment. This is true by definition and cannot be refuted.

That would explain why no-one ever gets a haircut now, nor do people ever go to fast food places anymore, what with the minimum wage being too high. It also explains why all those security guards have been thrown onto the dole and why toilets have never been cleaned since 1999. In fact, that would explain all the industries that have just plain disappeared from the face of the Earth thanks to the working class having their outrageous six quid an hour wage demands met.

Not like the good old days pre 1999 when full employment was the order of the day, not like 1983 when some people where weighed down taking pay-packets £2.00 an hour home.

Come on, TT. Look, I know you have a Right Wing dogma to defend in spite of all the evidence, but the NMW ship has sailed; it has been in place for over ten years now and you know what? The Country has not collapsed, nor has employment stopped, either. All that has happened is people you despise are no longer used as toilet paper.

Have you no joy in your life to the extent that you actually want to see people driven into the dirt?

John77 @ 18

Northern Worker”‘s baby-sitting circle is much more efficient than any system that involves bureaucracy.

Christ what is with you people? Baby sitting circles are fine and no-one is even seriously suggesting they be banned. Despite the usual halfwit suggesting everyone in the Country requires a CRB check to look after a child, no one is suggesting that EVERY child forcefully removed from their parents and locked in an after school club. What is being suggested is that for SOME, not EVERY parent such help may be useful. No-one is suggesting that EVERY parent in the Country would find it useful, merely that some may find it useful. Why is that concept so difficult for you Tories to grasp? What is so difficult about that?

I mean if I see a programme regarding artificial limbs, I don’t immediately think ‘Hmm, I cannot understand this concept because I have four limbs, do I’.

GET A FUCKING LIFE.

Fuck me I had to check to see if this was the Tory site.

TT @ 17

I would suggest it is all about what kind of things you cut in order to give the guy a tax cut. Okay, someone may get the benefit of a extra pint in the pub, but if you have cut his child’s after school club, you then restrict the number of hours he can work. If the guy has to cut backshift hours to look after his children (and the backshift allowance that goes with it) have you made him better of? If he loses an A&E department, sure he might not notice it for months or even years, but one day when his child is in a coma and the nearest A&E is ten miles away, ihas that extra pint been worth it?

Jim is spouting off foul-mouthed nonsense. An evening baby-sitting circle where the child stays in his/her own home is still legal but an arrangement such as Northern Worker described where the child is dropped off at the friend’s house on the way to work and other days the friend drops off her child is now illegal unless both friends have registered as childminders.
Neither Northern Worker nor I have said we want to scrap the SureStart scheme although I personally think it’s poor value for money, So why does he pretend that we did? As an excuse to indulge in an anti-Tory rant when Northern Worker is advocating a Liberal Democrat policy?
The NMW ship sailed a long time ago and a lot of the passengers wish they were back on dry land. All the guff about how much better off the ladies who worked in “sweatshops” would be has been quietly forgotten as 90% of those “sweatshops” have closed down. Unemployment including those on incapacity benefit to get a like-for-like comparison is now higher in absolute numbers than in the 1930s. The New Labour propaganda stated that no-one would lose their job by being sacked when NMW was introduced because they made it illegal for an employer to sack anyone just because their pay went up – they omitted to mention the half a million who were made redundant when the factory went bust instead.

“Not like the good old days pre 1999 when full employment was the order of the day”

We have full employment now, right?

“Look, I know you have a Right Wing dogma to defend in spite of all the evidence, but the NMW ship has sailed; it has been in place for over ten years now and you know what? The Country has not collapsed, nor has employment stopped, either. All that has happened is people you despise are no longer used as toilet paper.”

It is economics, not right wing dogma. You attack economics because it tells you facts you don’t like. Of course there are still jobs. The problem of the NMW is that it means that those at the bottom don’t get jobs, as you can see with regard to youth unemployment especially. The economic case is clear, and it is value free. That means it’s neither in favour of a NMW nor against, it merely points out the effects. If you want a NMW then fine, but understand the effects are not just on those who see a wage rise because of it, but on those who never get a job. Whether the price is worth paying is not a question economics can answer.

The same applies to other ‘worthy’ desires, such as fixing rents, or fixing the price of bread.

John77 @ 23
but an arrangement such as Northern Worker described where the child is dropped off at the friend’s house on the way to work and other days the friend drops off her child is now illegal unless both friends have registered as childminders.
Utter garbage. My own step daughter has such an arrangement with her cousin and we also take the kids at the weekend without anyone being a registered childminder. I bet millions of others do the same thing, too. My grandchildren often have sleepovers with friends and social services have never had a dawn raid to snatch those kids into the clutches of Barnadoes, and do you know what? I very much doubt that we are breaking any law in the process.
All the guff about how much better off the ladies who worked in “sweatshops” would be has been quietly forgotten as 90% of those “sweatshops” have closed down.
Businesses have been closing down for centauries, with our without the minimum wage. Companies fail. Sad but true, so these ladies move on from failed businesses, isn’t that what normally happens?
The New Labour propaganda stated that no-one would lose their job by being sacked when NMW was introduced because they made it illegal for an employer to sack anyone just because their pay went up – they omitted to mention the half a million who were made redundant when the factory went bust instead.
Half a million people made redundant? Again we have seen this for decades before the minimum wage was introduced. Factories and call centres have been closing down with the work transferred to the far East since the last time the Tories where in power and at wage rates significantly higher than the minimum wage too. In some cases we have had skilled and semi skilled people earning double the minimum wage losing their jobs to the Far East. Now if you are advocating a MAXIMUM wage of say, £8 an hour to save jobs, then good luck with that, but I suspect you are not, because it is the poor you are after.

The fact is we are moving away from low value manufacturing in this Country into the service industry. If someone who used to make T shirts for £4 an hour is now selling T shirts for £6 an hour, where’s the harm?

TT @ 24

We have full employment now, right?

No, but we were not in full employment before the introduction of the NMW either, therefore is is nonsense to suggest that the NMW is somehow causing unemployment.

It is economics, not right wing dogma.

It is economics written by people exposing right wing dogma. For twenty years we have had Michael Howard and Michael Hesilitine on ‘Question time’, telling us the minimum wage would destroy three million jobs, while they were in Government and two years after they were booted out, we saw the introduction of a minimum wage and…

…nothing happened.

So what were these fears of both Micheals based on? Objective economic reports? Or reports commissioned to order by yesmen, in order to fulfil a bit of a Right Wing circle jerk? Given the Tories record on commissioning reports that just happen to ‘prove’ they were right all along I think we both know the answer to that.

The problem of the NMW is that it means that those at the bottom don’t get jobs

How exactly does that work? What are these industries that are being killed off that could be done by these youths? I am serious, BTW, what types of industries are being killed of via the minimum wage? What kind of services were we getting in 1998 that are gone now?

@ 25 Jim
There is an exemption from the requirement for registration in the case when children are left with a relative, as you would know if you bothered to read the regulations. Northern Worker referred to a *friend* not a relative. So quoting an example of an exempted arrangement is irrelevant.
Your childish insult is boring.
What normally happens is that economists forecast what effect a proposed government measure will have and the government either changes its mind or tweaks the measure to reduce the ill-effects. What Blair did was to add a clause to hide the ill-effects for a short period. The results have turned out as forecast and left-wing apologists like you are kept busy denying that they happened. Those ladies are not selling T shirts for £6/hour because shop assistants don’t get to work flexible hours around taking kids to school and, in some cases, their English isn’t good enough so the family is worse off – a lot of them don’t even show up in the unemployment statistics because they are deemed (non-employed” instead of “unemployed”.

John77 @ 27

There is an exemption from the requirement for registration in the case when children are left with a relative, as you would know if you bothered to read the regulations.

Is there? Where is your evidence for such a statement. What force of law has a ‘cousin’ got? Does that count as a ‘relative’. Perhaps you could point me to the ‘regulations’?

Those ladies are not selling T shirts for £6/hour…

And you know that for a fact, do you? You personally have met them all have you? You have studied *everyone* who has lost a job since 1999 to detail the NMW have you? You have studied the level of English of these ‘ladies’ have you? You have extensive knowledge of the working patterns of entire sectors of employment, have you?

I am going to stick my neck out here. I bet you have studied exactly fuck all and have made up these claims in order to back up your anti the minimum wage crap.

Just a guess, you could point me to your evidence, though?

a lot of them don’t even show up in the unemployment statistics because they are deemed (non-employed” instead of “unemployed”.

What is the difference?

@17 – Beer? Fags? How about the real concerns of the poor – housing, basic food, utilities. The things they’re increasingly unable to afford. America shows what happens under your model. Why are you so contemptuous of the poor?

@26 – We DID have full employment – 95%+ – for some years.

“No, but we were not in full employment before the introduction of the NMW either, therefore is is nonsense to suggest that the NMW is somehow causing unemployment.”

No it is not nonsense. Nobody, certainly not me, has said that NMW is the sole cause of unemployment, and that its removal would automatically lead to full employment.

“It is economics written by people exposing right wing dogma. ”

Economics is science. It is neither rightwing nor leftwing.

“What are these industries that are being killed off that could be done by these youths?”

Your view of employment is very limited. I would say it’s more the case that jobs across all different sectors are lost.

@ 28
“What is childminding?
Childminding is one to three people looking after children on domestic premises for more than two hours in any one day for reward.
Domestic premises is where a person lives, usually the home of one of the childminders. Reward is any form of payment between two people; this is usually money but can include goods or reciprocal care arrangements. “
See http://www.croydon.gov.uk/community/childcare/childmind/registration
“Childcare
For the first time the law defines childcare as any form of care for a child including education or any other supervised activity. It excludes from this definition:
• education provided by a school for children not in the early years age group
• any form of health care for children
• care provided by relatives”
see http://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/information-on-registers-2.doc
As whether a cousin is a relative, I shall refer you to the nearest dictionary

@ 29
Unemployed sign on at the Job Centre and say they are available for a job that the Job Centre sends them to apply for. Non-employed don’t, so are excluded from the unemployment statistics.
Are you trying to tell me that you don’t know that?.

@ 25
Dataset Name: lms5
Title: Workforce jobs by industry
Description: Workforce jobs by industry : United Kingdom: Thousands: Seasonally adjusted
Source: Office for National Statistics
LOLQ MANUFACTURING Women Seasonally adjusted
1998 1341
2009 722
Actually that is more than 600k jobs lost but they aren’t all due to NMW – male manufacturing jobs lost as well, smaller percentage, because fewer affected by NMW.
Textile industry employment in 1998 369k (ONS) or 359k according to Phil Woolas (ref: Hansard 17th Nov 1998)
2006 101k according to Hansard 11th Dec 2008
Now – no longer reported separately by ONS because too small

@ 28
No I haven’t spent weeks going round interviewing women who wouldn’t want to speak to me. There is lots of info available however such as (this was the first that came up) showing that the effect of the collapse in the textile industry is high unemployment for “ethnic minority” women.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=X24bDPbK2gQC&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=Ethnic+unemployment+textile+industry&source=bl&ots=7Kh2nN_Gog&sig=JRd5QTnxDdXeP_EQZ5E4NR7bagk&hl=en&ei=q32xTtCKJIWG8gOqlaSeAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Ethnic%20unemployment%20textile%20industry&f=false

TT @ 31

Economics is science. It is neither rightwing nor leftwing.

Economics is entirely subjective and entirely based on the writer’s pre-conceived ideas. Nothing to with science, though it nice to see a Libertarian acknowledge that science is neither Left or Right Wing.

Your view of employment is very limited. I would say it’s more the case that jobs across all different sectors are lost.

Jobs across all sectors are being lost, I think we both know that is true, but how much of that is down to the minimum wage? Given that the minimum wage is based around the service industry, rather than manufacturing, then surely it is the demand for services rather than a labour cost that is the determining factor for employment?

You claim that the minimum wage is responsible for job losses, but if that was true then you would be saying that the price of labour has made sections of the service industry no longer viable.

For example, hairdressing. If the price of a new hairstyle exceeds the price that people would be willing to pay then obviously hairdressing would suffer a downturn and we would see that industry’s unemployment rate rise.

Say the women (and many of the men) of Glasgow stopped, on masse, getting those ridiculous fake tans because they were too expensive. We would expect to see that the myriad of tanning salons all over Glasgow would shut wouldn’t we? If so, wouldn’t it be reasonable to deduce that something in the process was becoming so expensive to make that industry pay. Now it could be rents, rates, the chemicals or electricity, but it could, potentially be labour costs, yes? Of course, it could just be fashion and not price that has changed in which case labour costs are totally irrelevant.

Of course a more concrete example would be security firms. When I was young security guards were the worse paid jobs in the Country. Wages of £1.50 PH were common with employees expected to pay for their own uniforms. Almost all the security firms were bent, run by crooks, and most of the employees were treated like shite. Security is and was then a labour intensive business. Yet since the introduction of the minimum wage, the industry has not gone under. There are still thousands of security men in employment and they are far better paid than before and can expect to be treated fairly. I would go so far as to say many of the firms are now run as legitimate businesses and not used for money laundering.

As I have said, if the minimum wage was killing jobs the I think it would be reasonable to assume that labour intensive industries would be hardest hit.

You appear to be suggesting that job losses are due to the minimum wage, but jobs are being lost at wage levels way above the minimum wage.

John77@ 32

Non-employed don’t,

But that only happens if they have compelling reason why they cannot work. You cannot just claim to be ‘non-employed’ then the dole leave you alone. If these are not avialable for work it is because these women cannot work, not because they cannot be bothered to look for work.

John77 @ 33

Dataset Name: lms5

Nobody disputes that manufacturing is in decline. It has been since long before the minimum wage was introduced, though. What we are talking about is ‘employment’ not employment in any given sector. So, even if someone loses a job in a sweatshop to a third World manufacturer then it is vital that we find people employment in sustainable industry, rather than crap little jobs sewing up t shirts.

Anyone who thinks that UK Plc’s future is making t-shirts for PriMark is sadly mistaken.

On another thread, a guy caled ‘Rusty’ has suggested that we need to educate people and up skill our labour force, without doubt he is correct because shuffling people into poverty jobs is dragging this Country down and will continue to do so. If these women are unable to speak English, then rather than cut the minimum wage, it makes vastly more sense to teach them English in order that they can contribute to the economy in a meaningful fashion.

No? Is that wrong? The best way to compete with India is to have Indian levels of illiteracy?

@ 37 Jim
Are pretending to be thick?
Those who are unemployed can claim benefits, those who are non-employed cannot so of course the JobCentre leaves them alone.
Some people can work part-time but not meet the JobCentre’s requirements so they move between part-time employment and non-employment rather than employment and unemployment. When non-employed they are not able to claim JSA so they get excluded from the “Claimant Count”. I never said that they couldn’t be bothered to look for work, so don’t imply that I did.
Teaching them English rather than relying on one of their children to interpret for them is laudable but only if they want to learn. Illiteracy and monolingualism are not the same thing – otherwise vast numbers of English and Americans would be defined as illiterate.

@35 Jim,

“Economics is entirely subjective and entirely based on the writer’s pre-conceived ideas.”

How totally wrong you are, and the strange thing is you follow this by posting a load of stuff about economic matters, showing that you don’t believe this silly statement. Or do you? Is your post @ 35 entirely subjective and entirely based on your preconceived ideas?

“though it nice to see a Libertarian acknowledge that science is neither Left or Right Wing”

What does this even mean?

“You claim that the minimum wage is responsible for job losses”

Wrong. I said it causes unemployment.

@37 – No, he means illiteracy, just like he said.

john @ 37

Those who are unemployed can claim benefits, those who are non-employed cannot so of course the JobCentre leaves them alone.

That is not true, john. Even if you cannot actually claim benefits you are still classed as ‘unemployed’ in the headline figures. ‘Unemployed’ is everyone who is able, but not in work. There is a sub category among the unemployed as ‘unemployed and receipt of benefits’. People who are not eligible for benefits still sign on to maintain their National Insurance contributions.

@ 41
No *you* have got it wrong.
“People who are not eligible for benefits still sign on to maintain their National Insurance contributions.” That should be “People who are not eligible for contribution-based JSA still sign on to maintain their record of National Insurance contributions.” If you sign on you are defined as unemployed and eligible for a range of benefits (unless you have too much money). If you’re trying to nitpick that a handful of people still have enough money when they’ve exhausted contribution-based JSA so that they are ineligible for income-based JSA, then a credit for unpaid NI Contributions is a benefit.
The point is that if you do not sign on you are not defined as unemployed and so not included in the ‘Claimant Count’

TT @ 38

Is your post @ 35 entirely subjective and entirely based on your preconceived ideas?

Yes, of course it is. You surely didn’t think I was plagiarising a published writer did you?

I am explaining what I would expect to see if the minimum wage was having a detrimental effect of employment. This is based entirely how I believe how markets work and my preconceptions.

What does this even mean?

You know exactly what I mean, you people are not the most objective when it comes to science that fails to fit your values.

I would expect to see a collapse in a given sector or other. I would expect to an immediate impact as the industry (tanning salons, hairdressers) suffered a squeeze in demand and the initial collapse of a market would slowly tail of as equilibrium was reached.

If the minimum wage was set ‘too high’ I would expect to see that to spread over a number of unrelated sectors and unemployment to shower through the roof as previously employed people became unemployable practically overnight.

Since 1999 we have seen nothing of the sort to be honest. We have got unemployable people of course, but that has been true since the late eighties. The only real sticking points are:

1) The credit crunch and resulting crash.
2) Public sector job losses.
3) The purge of incapacity benefit claimants onto the dole.
4) Public sector spending cuts affecting demand.

The above has obscured the data as far as I can see.

@ 43
“I would expect to see a collapse in a given sector or other.”
Which is exactly what did happen, as forecast, in textiles except for the luxury end of the business (Savile Row etc). One of the subsectors itemised by Hansard as still having a few workers was silk.

@42,

you’re standing by this statement:

“Economics is entirely subjective and entirely based on the writer’s pre-conceived ideas. Nothing to with science.”

To say it has nothing to do with science is to negate any purpose in its study, other than pleasure I suppose, and to say it’s entirely subjective, then there’s no right or wrong, correct or false and nothing to learned by rational reflection or discourse. This is polylogism taken to its apotheosis. If this is your opinion, you have no business refuting my views or anyone else’s, other than egoism. Why is your entirely subjective view better than anyone else’s?

Besides, I don’t even think you mean what you say, which is evidenced by you putting forward various viewpoints, based on observation. This suggests you see economics as an empirical science, and from an admittedly subjective starting point, you go looking for evidence to support your theories.

John77 @ 43

That is a process which has been ongoing though, since the 1950s, nothing has changed with the introduction of the minimum wage, has it?

TT @ 44

This suggests you see economics as an empirical science, and from an admittedly subjective starting point, you go looking for evidence to support your theories

That is what we all do, TT. You are doing the same thing. We try and be can be as objective as possible but we are all coming to this debate with our own baggage. If I saw evidence that the minimum wage was hiking up unemployment, then I would be advocating another policy based on what I can observe. It would hardly be in my interests, in terms of ideology to see millions of people hiked onto the dole, would it?

Same as the direct vs indirect taxation thing. All the evidence I have read suggests that indirect taxation hurts the poor, but if I found irrefutable evidence that suggested that was untrue, then I would be a fool to stoically advocate cutting taxes that made the rich better off whilst raising taxes of those designed to hurt the poor, would I?

If this is your opinion, you have no business refuting my views or anyone else’s, other than egoism.

Surely I have the right to point out what I think are obvious flaws in someone else’s argument, based on observable evidence?

For example, I have read on this message board that ‘unemployment is caused by the invention of the Welfare State’. Surely I am entitled to point out periods of time when unemployment was endemic, both here and abroad were no Welfare State existed? Surely that question is an invite to go and re-examine that statement and attempt to come up with a better hypothesis?

I would suggest that the original statement and my attempt to refute it tell you more about our political leanings rather than our ability for a keen examination of the facts. Only a Right Winger would make the statement and only a left winger would attempt to dispute that.

Why is your entirely subjective view better than anyone else’s?

Well, who knows? But if someone tells me that lower wages would bring more lower productive people into the workforce, and they post that from Portugal, I think we are entitled to ask them to explain that position, no?

@ 45 Jim,

when I said you were taking an empirical approach, this was to point out that the statement you made about economics being entirely subjective, nothing to do with science etc seemed contrary to what you were really saying.

As for myself, I incline to the Austrian School of Economics, which takes a completely different view, and says that empiricism, i.e. the scientific approach with regard to natural sciences is not appropriate to the social sciences.

I will not vex you with my humble exposition of the difference, for fear of misleading you by my own error, but it is the difference between a priori and a posteriori, deductive and inductive.

@ 46 Jim
Sigh
We said the NMW would kill the bottom end of the textile industry; we have been proved right with only the bits which already paid wages sufficiently higher to be unaffected by the ratchet effect surviving and you try to say this was a process that was ongoing. Who are you trying to kid?
No, of course it was not. 72% fall in employment in eight years with no significant changes to the market except NMW. Excluding the luxury subsector it was more than a 90% fall.