Tag Archives: minimum

The Tories are lying about Universal Basic Income

Oliver Dowden: he doesn’t want people to have a guaranteed minimum income; he wants us to live in fear of poverty.

As England prepares to run two pilot studies on Universal Basic Income, the Tories have been talking it down just as much as they can.

But is it that bad? A recent study in Finland would suggest that it’s actually very good for people, no matter what Politics Live panellist Lee Rowley might say.

What do you think? Would you like a guaranteed minimum income? Would you feel more secure with it? Would it encourage you to try things you otherwise would not?

Send in a comment!


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Aldi boss did NOT blame the minimum wage for inflation, it seems


This is interesting: it seems the Torygraph has been feeding us falsehoods.

After yesterday’s article commenting on claims that Aldi boss Giles Hurley had said the minimum wage was to blame for high inflation, information has come to This Site stating that it is not true.

This information seems persuasive, as Aldi has the lowest prices in the UK (according to Which? magazine) and the highest hourly wages of any supermarket. It is also the only supermarket to pay colleagues for the breaks in their shift.

Why would anyone blame the minimum wage for inflation when they actually pay more than that as a matter of course, while keeping their prices lower than anybody else? That would indeed seem strange to This Writer, and as the Telegraph can only say the comments were “understood” to have come from a roundtable event at 10 Downing Street earlier this month, we have no direct source for the claim.

The Telegraph went on to state that “sources close to Aldi, which markets itself as a cheaper option for British shoppers, insisted that they related to the wider food sector rather than supermarket pay”. Again, as this is not supported with a directly-attributable comment, we have no reason to believe it to be true. I can’t see how a boss who pays more than the minimum wage to his own employees would say it was too high for others.

It seems This Writer’s own claim that a 27 per cent sales rise means an increased operating profit may also be at fault. According to the supermarket’s most recent published financial results, pre-tax profits for the year 2021 were £35.7 million – a drop of £229.1 million (86.5 per cent) on the previous year.

Aldi has attributed this to “investment in prices, people and pandemic-related expenses”.

Figures for the year 2022 are not yet available so we can’t yet see how profits were affected in that year.

So, unless anyone else can produce more convincingly-damning evidence, it seems Aldi and Mr Hurley are in the clear.

This does not, of course, change the facts about the other supermarket chains.


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Guaranteed Minimum Pensions holders set to lose thousands due to DWP disdain

The Tory government has shafted pensioners – again.

Around 11 million people were contracted out of the State Earnings-Related Pensions Scheme by their employer, on condition that they would receive an index-linked guaranteed minimum pension.

This arrangement, for anyone in the private sector, was scrapped when the new state pension was introduced in 2016 – but remains in place for public sector workers.

The decision to scrap it was never mentioned in Parliament or in any Pensions legislation.

Women are the most seriously affected. Everybody involved is losing cash ranging from a few pounds a week to tens of thousands over the lifetime of their pension.

That’s the historical situation.

Now, after two people won £1,250 each in compensation after complaining to the Ombudsman, the government has decided not to ensure that everybody affected – who might also deserve payment – is told.

The Ombudsman recommended action “to ensure that affected individuals receive appropriate communication from the DWP [Department for Work and Pensions] about their state pensions”.

But in response, all the DWP has done is publish a factsheet on the GOV.UK website. It has not informed anybody who is affected by the changes that the factsheet exists, or even put out a press release.

You can read the factsheet here – and by publishing the link, This Site has done more to inform those affected than the UK government.

Taking this into account, it should be no surprise that only 6,922 people have read the factsheet and only four people (according to DWP Permanent Secretary Peter Schofield) have made inquiries about it.

None received any compensation because Schofield said they were not eligible.

So, of a possible 11 million people affected by the GMP change, the DWP’s tailor-made strategy (in response to an Ombudsman’s recommendation, remember) has reached nobody.

As intended?

Read a deeper analysis of the implications here: Rip off: DWP to take no further action to compensate millions who lost thousands of pounds of extra pensions | Westminster Confidential

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Shadow employment minister quits because Starmer wanted him to oppose a fair minimum wage

Andy McDonald: more integrity than Keir Starmer. It’s not saying much, mind – Richard Nixon had more integrity than Starmer and he was so bent he needed an assistant to screw him into his trousers every morning.

What could be more embarrassing for Labour leader Keir Starmer than saying on TV that Labour would not re-nationalise key utilities, only to see the party make re-nationalising key utilities its policy on the same day?

How about his shadow Employment Secretary quitting because Starmer wanted him to speak against a plan to increase the minimum wage to a fair level?

That’s what happened at #LabourConference2021 on September 27.

In brief, Starmer ordered McDonald to argue against a £15 minimum wage and statutory sick pay at the same rate as the living wage – so McDonald quit.

In his resignation letter he made it clear that this was the last straw – implying that he had been running out of patience with Starmer for many months.

Let’s face it, the part of his letter when he said

After 18 months of your leadership, our movement is more divided than ever and the pledges that you made to the membership are not being honoured. This is just the latest of many

makes this plain.

Starmer’s own stance over minimum pay is clear. He thinks £15 is too much.

Right?

Oh, then why did he himself campaign for a £15 floor when he was trying to get Labour members to elect him as leader?

See for yourself:

Footage from this picket was indeed used for Starmer’s leadership bid:

“It will be the norm if we have a Labour government,” he said.

Liar!

It’s sickening to have this utter pondslime dragging a once-great pillar of socialism into disgrace.

Where is the “no confidence” vote?

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Johnson caught lying again: latest ‘Living’ Wage rise was NOT highest on record

Duper’s delight: Boris Johnson has been caught lying to the nation yet again.

He just can’t help himself, it seems.

When Boris Johnson said, “We continually increase the Living Wage – last time by a record amount,” his words were not true.

And it is reasonable to expect that he would have known the facts of the matter. Therefore This Site may suggest with a degree of certainty that he was lying.

According to fact-checkers at Channel 4,

Mr Johnson’s claim that the most recent rise in the Living Wage was the highest ever doesn’t add up.

In April 2021, the Living Wage rose by 2.2 per cent compared to the previous year. But in April 2020, the rise was nearly three times larger at 6.2 per cent. And in 2019, the boost was 5 per cent.

In fact, the most recent rise was the lowest increase in the National Living Wage since the policy was first introduced.

And Johnson must have known this when he came out with his lie.

Those of you who are waiting for him to “move Heaven and Earth” to get our remaining people out of Afghanistan should take note – and make alternative plans.

Source: FactCheck: Johnson claims latest Living Wage rise was highest on record – Channel 4 News

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Hardship for one in three people by May as Tory plans to impoverish us grind onwards

Small change: ironically, that’s probably how the Tories think of the 21.7 million people they’ve tipped into poverty.

One in three people will be living in hardship by May, according to a report by the New Economics Foundation.

This means 21.7 million people will still not have a decent standard of living even though the £20 per week Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit uplift has been extended.

Here’s Charlotte Hughes:

The report goes on to say that 12.9 million of the people in financial difficulty will be receiving less than 75% of the Minimum Income Standard which is defined as being £19,200 for a single person and £37,400 for a family of four.

Despite the furlough scheme, unemployment has continued to rise over the last year. According to the latest government data it shows that unemployment has increased by 1.3% points higher than the previous year. It also also shows the largest annual decrease in employment since the aftermath of the financial crisis. This being half a million fewer people employed than there was last year. Redundancy rates have also risen from 8.4 per thousand on the year, to 12.3 per thousand employees.

This leaves millions of people that are now dependant upon our social security system to support incomes, help with housing costs and to feed people.

At the time of writing the latest government data reveals there are 5.9 million people on universal credit with 3 million receiving housing benefit, 2.5 million receiving personal independence payment, 1.9 million receiving employment support allowance, 1.4 million receiving disability living allowance, and 0.3 million receiving jobseeker’s allowance.

We know that the UC/WTC uplift will continue until September but after that, claimants face a “cliff-edge” situation that could tip a further 1.1 million people into poverty.

But, you know what?

None of them will be members of the Tory government or doners to the Conservative Party, so they don’t matter. Do they?

Source: 21.7 million people will be living in hardship by May despite the Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit £20 uplift. ‹ The poor side of life ‹ Reader — WordPress.com

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‘Slave plantation’ MP Drax shamed over non-payment of minimum wage

Richard Drax.

Why do villains like this always get away with the harm they do?

Worse, why do they insult us by standing for Parliament – and why do we self-harm by voting them in?

It’s insanity.

So Richard Drax – allegedly the wealthiest landowner in the House of Commons – is a director of the Morden Estates Company and signed off on the underpayment of 43 workers there.

This has put his firm on a list of 139 businesses … in a government press release headed “Rogue employers named and shamed for failing to pay minimum wage”.

How did Drax’s family get so rich? From recent headlines it seems they profited from slavery:

He has recently been facing calls to pay reparations over the Drax Hall Plantation in Barbados. His ancestors had a slave workforce there for nearly 200 years.

Some people never change, it seems.

Drax himself has said

the “technical infringement” concerned “beaters” – people who drive game birds out of their cover at shooting events. He said they traditionally took part for enjoyment but had been paid a “modest sum”.

Nobody, it seems, has tracked down any of these beaters to ask if the MP’s information is correct. It seems that, because he is an MP, and a landowner, and an employer, he is automatically allotted the last word.

Note also that fellow Tory Richard Jenrick has recently launched a plan for legislation to protect monuments to historical slavers.

If those statues represent the ancestors of colleagues like Drax, the motivation seems clear.

Source: MP Richard Drax’s family business “shamed” over minimum wage | Bournemouth Echo

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Coffey tells people earning less than minimum wage to take Universal Credit or blow their savings

Therese Coffey: if she’s an example of Tory ‘levelling up’ then we need to get rid of them for the sake of the nation.

If you can’t see what’s wrong with the pictured evoked by the headline, it’s simple: nobody should be earning less than the minimum wage.

There’s a reason it’s called the minimum. It is the legal limit below which no employer should be paying anybody.

But the Johnson government’s Work and Pensions Secretary – who should know this – didn’t.

Therese Coffee really is a waste of a Commons seat.

On Sky News yesterday (October 14), she refused to answer when Kay Burley repeatedly asked her if she could live on £5.84 an hour.

Instead, she said people could claim Universal Credit to have that amount topped up (after the obligatory five-week wait, but she didn’t mention that).

Or those with more than £16,000 in savings – which she described as “substantial” although This Writer is sure she and her fellow Tory ministers would consider it a pittance – could drill into that money until it is gone.

What a charmer. Here she is, avoiding the question:

And here’s the backlash:

(For those who can’t read images, Cleverly tweeted that, at elections, Labour think you’re an adult at 16, but when it comes to bus travel you’re not an adult until 25 – to which The Daily Politik responded that, when it comes to paying taxes, the Tories think you’re an adult at 16, but you don’t qualify for an adult minimum wage until 25.)

Meanwhile, the Tories have used the Covid crisis give huge amounts of cash to firms run by their chums, avoiding the normal tendering process. One such firm is paying people the equivalent of £1.5 million per year – each – to do nothing.

That is what the Conservatives call “levelling up”: they take your cash and use it to further enrich their friends.

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Johnson outdoes himself: minimum wage rise has upset employees and employers alike

Money: Boris Johnson is rolling in it but his policies have starved the UK of the cash that is the lifeblood of the economy.

Did you think the boost to the minimum wage was a wonderful thing?

Really?

I saw a rich toff on holiday in the sun, throwing a few crumbs at the plebs, so they won’t complain when he comes home and really puts the screws on them.

And did you notice?

The rise still won’t cover the cost of living; people on the minimum wage will have to try to claim benefits as well.

“National Living Wage” – it’s as much of a mockery as it was when the Tories first changed the name.

Oh – and the British Chambers of Commerce are already playing up about it.

They reckon it will eat into training and investment budgets – which is interesting because in This Writer’s experience such budgets no longer exist.

What do these bosses have against paying a decent wage for a day’s work, anyway?

They have tripled their own remuneration over the last 10 years under the Tories, after all.

Still, when all is considered, Boris Johnson is to be congratulated.

He has managed to make an inflation-busting pay increase leave everybody short-changed.

Minimum wage workers will receive a 51p an hour boost from April, the Government announced last night.

The National Living Wage, which is the legal pay floor for employees aged 25 and over, will rise from £8.21 to £8.72.

The rate for 21 to 24 years olds will climb from £7.70 to £8.20.

In contrast, the Real Living Wage, set by independent experts and championed by the Living Wage Foundation, is £9.30 an hour rising to £10.75 in London, where costs are higher.

It is earned by all workers regardless of their age.

Source: Minimum wage will rise by 51p to £8.72 an hour in April, government announces – Mirror Online

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Johnson has broken his minimum wage promise. Will his Tory manifesto be as worthless as May’s?

Duper’s delight: This is the smile Boris Johnson wears when he is lying. Was he wearing it when he promised a big increase in the ‘National Living Wage’?

Boris Johnson has broken his manifesto promise to increase the “National Living Wage” (he means the minimum wage), within days of using it to win a landslide election victory.

Page 14 of the Tory Manifesto states categorically: “In our first months, we announced an increase in the National Living Wage to two thirds of average earnings, currently forecast at £10.50 an hour, and widened its reach to everyone over 21. That means an average pay rise of £4,000 per year for four million people by 2024.”

This was the flagship policy announcement at the Tory conference, where Chancellor Sajid Javid proclaimed it would show the Tories are “the workers’ party”.

It was to be achieved by pegging the wage to two-thirds of median earnings, not 60 per cent as it is now.

But in the Queen’s Speech at the State Opening of Parliament last Friday, the words “provided economic conditions allow” had been inserted – rendering the promise meaningless.

The Tories will always be able to find an economic adviser who can claim conditions don’t allow a rise in the minimum wage.

In fact, with Johnson’s Brexit disaster looming large, it might be a long time before those on the minimum see any wage rise at all. Meanwhile the cost of living may rise out of control.

(… Not that I want to worry you!)

Then when the dirty Johnson decides to call another election (should that every happen), he can always wheel out the same promise all over again and know he can expect enough people to believe it – all over again.

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