General Election 2019

The conservatives are also promising 10 an hour this parliament so doesn't matter too much who they vote for. Labour plan to revaluated business rates to less hurt small high Street business

https://www.thetorymanifesto.com/

Presumably in some cases they can't (pay their staff a living wage). In many other cases it is a certainty that they can.

By this logic, though, why not get rid of any minimum wage? There are certainly many businesses which are on the cusp of existence, only being held back by having to pay staff more than a pittance. (Which, of course, is a point of view held by many Tories and liberals).

Labour plan to revaluated business rates to less hurt small high Street business

This is the best answer I can give then.

By this logic, though, why not get rid of any minimum wage?

Because that's fucking insane. Next stop everyone on a treadmill creating energy while working at their desks to do two or three jobs at once.

It's a serious question that, as you can probably tell, affects someone I know.
As an employer you are responsible for
salary
NIC
Pension contributions
insurance
holidays
sick pay
maternity pay

If your margins are tight already, and you want to support your staff because you care, you have to pass your costs on to your customers, but I imagine prices are already at the point of "if we charge much more, people will fuck off". I would imagine there are lots of businesses like this, regardless of sector.

Obvious, but required.

Why is it insane? Because people will be paid poverty wages, I suppose? Which, by all reports, is already the case and why there are calls to introduce a new living wage.

My point wasn't flippant. There is an argument for having no minimum wage from the more libertarian side of the spectrum, and it is a position which would agree with many of the points you made (in addition to claims about adults having a right to enter any contract to exchange their labour which they want). However, I think once you accept the legitimacy of a minimum wage to alleviate poverty/exploitation, you need to accept that in some cases businesses on the cusp of making a profit may be hurt.

Think of the ftp gains tho

"Business rates are causing real issues
for high-street retailers and others.
A Labour government will review
the option of a land value tax on
commercial landlords as an
alternative and develop a retail
sector industrial strategy."

It's tough, because although that's true in a sense, running a small business is hard, we've been surviving on a knife edge for a couple of years. I'm defo all for an increased minimum wage but offsetting that for small businesses in some way would be a big help, becoming just about big enough to have to be VAT registered has been the worse thing for us.

I'm meant to actually be working so missed a bunch of replies, no time to fix it but it still kinda fits.

If there were no lower limit on what people could pay ("let the market determine the value of this job!") we'd be in real trouble. It's the hidden costs of living in a stable equitable society that are hard to communicate aren't they?
Yes, I know you're going to make less profit, but: you won't have to pay for
Education of your children
Continuing education for yourself
Health care for your family (of a very high level)
Transportation to and from places

You'll benefit from having better educated staff.

Those sort of things.
I'd like to be able to explain those rationally and calmly without sounding like a patronising middle class look at me aren't I lucky twat.

It's absolutely right to pay the staff a decent wage,

Then it just depends how you define "decent". If the minimum wage doesn't allow people a reasonable life, then it's not "decent".

the purpose of running a business is so the owner makes a profit/enough money so they can afford to run their life from. Right?

Well yes, but you still have to run it within the general principles of dealing fairly with your employees. The point of working is to earn money to live a decent life. As raised above, why should we prioritise the needs of business owners above those of their employees?

Businesses folding would obviously be a problem, but given that they still need people to do whatever their business does, as long as the bar is raised for everyone at the same time, there will still be room for them in the market.

I'm defo all for an increased minimum wage but offsetting that for small businesses in some way would be a big help, becoming just about big enough to have to be VAT registered has been the worse thing for us.

This is the point I think I'm trying to make (badly)

I'd like to be able to explain those rationally and calmly without sounding like a patronising middle class look at me aren't I lucky twat.

That's fair, and apologies if I'm "sounding like a patronising middle class look at me aren't I lucky twat" in response. But I'm not sure there is an easy answer to your question, because prioritizing the concerns of the business owner, by definition, pushes workers/employees down. Unless we want to subsidize borderline-profit-making small businesses (I mean, we seem to already accept doing it for corporations, so...).

I think the point in the grand scheme of things, is that these small businesses aren't able to pass on the costs of paying employees a livable wage to their customers because either:

a) customers can't afford it, because they too, may not be earning a livable wage
b) they are competing against much larger businesses who through (pick your favourite of:) unfair business practices, creative accounting, tax avoidance are able to operate in an entirely different economic playing field
c) we have created an environment where large business have been able to get away with paying employees a pittance whilst generating large volumes of wealth for stakeholders, and borne an economic climate in which this imbalance is sustained, not challenged

and that labours manifesto aims to challenge that economic model at a larger scale than just increasing costs for small businesses, in that long term it is viable to do both?

Well yes, but you still have to run it within the general principles of dealing fairly with your employees. The point of working is to earn money to live a decent life.

Exactly.

As raised above, why should we prioritise the needs of business owners above those of their employees?
I'm not suggesting that. I'm trying to find a way of explaining "you need to pay people a living wage, a decent living wage" (they already pay the minimum wage, the increase in the minimum wage is their worry) to people who are just about making their business work and care about their staff. This is not a unique situation and is pretty emotive.

You're not sounding like that.
I'm concerned how I'll sound when trying to explain it. "you don't know the real world" etc etc.
Also, I'm concerned I'm sounding like some pro-big business person and a middle class centrist dad who just doesn't understand why people pay £4 for a coffee and be done with it.

ta, that'll help.

(whoever that is with the invisible username)

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Also, it's Friday. The chance of popcorn and name calling and bile is increased, and I'm not after that.

Shame they missed the opportunity to create something similarly misleading.

The solution to this problem is obviously benefits for corporations and PAYE corporation tax

Ha ha my thoughts exactly. Christ.

I'm thick as fuck, can you explain?
ta

If your poor business earns below some threshold it gets given benefits by the government. We could call it Corporate Universal iNcome Tax. The Googles of the world get a 40% tax rate, the little unprofitable food stalls get free money to pay their employees with.

My idiotic version of humour, sorry. But probably something the Tories would go for whilst simultaneously cutting actual human benefits