Comment on Minimum wage is UK’s ‘most successful economic policy in a generation’
RobotToaster@mander.xyz 8 months ago
Wasn’t minimum wage only necessary because of Thatcher’s war against unions?
Comment on Minimum wage is UK’s ‘most successful economic policy in a generation’
RobotToaster@mander.xyz 8 months ago
Wasn’t minimum wage only necessary because of Thatcher’s war against unions?
JoBo@feddit.uk 8 months ago
Yes, that and increasing conditionality of benefits (which were originally designed to place a floor under which no employer could sink).
Minimum wage is a neoliberal policy, necessitated by the fact that capital would happily starve its own workforce to death and only then wonder why they could not find any more workers to exploit.
The Scandinavian countries are, I think, the only wealthy countries left with no minimum wage. Because sectoral bargaining still works there (hence Musk’s travails in Sweden).
I haven’t read this report but any research like this needs to also look at the proportion of the workforce who are at or close to the minimum wage, which has steadily increased since 1999. It has undoubtedly improved things for the most easily exploited workers but it has also meant that wages in general have pancaked downwards. Overall inequality has increased even as minimum wage improved things for the very lowest paid. This headline is reporting the good news while ignoring the bad.