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Originally Posted by mkpdavies
Thing is, not everyone has the brains you do. Some people simply were not born with masses of brain power, but they make for excellent labourers for example.
Why should these people accept a wage that has been driven into the ground, by other rich brainy people allowing a free for all in their area of work?
Are they supposed to accept their lot in life? Can you really blame some of these types for saying sod the system, I'm going to turn to crime?
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The minimum wage doesn't create a good living for everyone. Let me give you a very vague example.
If I run a fruit farm, and I need to employ 100 fruit pickers a day, for 8 hours a day, at £2 an hour, that'll cost me £1,600 in labour. If the minimum wage comes in at £4 an hour, my daily labour costs are now £3,200. Am I going to keep 100 fruit pickers? Only if the going's good. What's more likely is I'll shed some of the staff and put my prices up.
I'm not saying this is the case for everyone, I just wanted to show in a very approximate way how the minimum wage can create unemployment. I believe it has done that, in conjunction with worker rights legislation, maternity and paternity laws, HSE meddling and a general failure by the government to stop annoying business. The figures for unemployment bear me out.
I don't think they're likely to turn to crime. I think they're most likely to go and sponge off benefits. Considering we have more people on benefits than ever, I think I'm probably right.