Yes
The comments that Philip Davies made in regards to the minimum wage were not only wrong, but more worryingly they seem to show a level of ignorance and a distinct lack of empathy towards some of the most vulnerable in our society.
Richard Hawkins, the Chief Executive of disability charity Scope, sums up the mood perfectly: “we need to challenge employers’ prejudices – not pander to them.”
His sentiments are all the more relevant when one considers that almost seven million people of working age are disabled. People with disabilities make up one-fifth of the whole working population, therefore we need to understand the obstacles that this important and large group of individuals face, rather than reinforce prejudice and discrimination by giving employers the opportunity to exploit them. To put it in simple terms, Philip Davies’ comments treat disabled people as cheap labour.
The most vulnerable in society should not have to accept worse pay and conditions to get their feet in the door. If anything, in a modern society such as ours, employers should feel empathy towards the most vulnerable and be more respectful of their strengths and weaknesses. The minimum wage in its present form protects the worst off in our society from exploitation.
In the years before 1999, when the minimum wage became law, people worked for paltry sums, with unemployment as the only alternative. Watering down the legislation even by a little would be a return to those days, which saw people earn as low £1.20 an hour (£1.38 in today’s money). Employers have exploited people before and would in all likelihood exploit again.
What makes this all the worse is that the minimum wage, though a protection against poverty, is hardly a massive sum in itself. Those over 22 years old receive only £5.93 an hour, which barely covers two pints of lager. A business which cannot afford to pay its workers such a derisory sum is surely not a viable one in modern Britain.
Philip Davies should reconsider his comments and apologise, not just to the disabled people of the UK who he has offended but to fellow MPs like Conservative Paul Maynard and Labour’s Dame Anne Begg, who the voters chose at the last election despite their disabilities. If they are good enough to represent the people of Blackpool North And Cleveleys and Aberdeen South, then why are other disabled people not good enough to earn the minimum wage?
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No
The minimum wage has caused unemployment. Ten years since New Labour came to power and introduced the minimum wage, youth unemployment doubled, and has grown faster since. The minimum wage hurts marginal and entry level workers more (those who can be replaced by skilled labour) who may not find an employer willing to offer them minimum wage for their skills. It doesn’t make sense to say that artificially raising the prices without there being a corresponding rise in demand will not cause a fall in consumption. The same applies to people with low skills. A major meta-study of minimum wage papers by Neumark and Wascher has shown this.
The same applies to those who are disabled – and this was the point that Phillip Davies was trying to make before he was shouted down by the mob. He never demanded an exemption from the minimum wage for those those disabled; he wants it abolished entirely. In his speech he used the examples of youth unemployment, disabled people, and people coming out of the prison system.
Some disabled people have low skills; in most cases they are discriminated against by society. According to research from Mind, more than 6 out of 10 employers would not consider hiring someone who has a mental health problem. This is something that some good employers like BT have been trying to change. Since 2003, BT has provided sustainable opportunities for over 300 disabled people to work through its award winning Able to Work outplacement scheme, and have also found that in some cases those who are disabled work more effectively than their non-disabled counterparts. The minimum wage simply creates another hurdle for the worst off in society in trying to advance themselves. The amount of stigma that people face by being unemployed because of the minimum wage shows that the best-intended policy can instead create an artificial trap.
Of course, some employers were paying less than minimum wage before it was introduced because they could, and now they can’t, so some people are out of jobs. Great! Congratulations! Some of the most vulnerable people in society are now banned from having a job. But hey, at least employers aren’t paying less than minimum wage. We do need to look at ways we can raise the incomes of the poorest, but the minimum wage has failed everyone. Progressive societies like Sweden and Denmark have seen this and rejected the minimum wage. Britain should do the same.
Byrne those are truly shocking views. You really need to have a think about how low the minimum actually is. Think of the low paid university employees who without a minimum wage would be earning less, can you look them in the eye young Thomas?
Hi Thom.
If possible could you please provide the full reference to the Neumark and Wascher study you mention? For the sake of argument I’ll assume you’re correct and that the minimum wage does reduce employment, though see the studies linked to from this blog which contradict this assertion:
http://truth-reason-liberty.blogspot.com/2011/03/on-minimum-wage-and-unemployment.html
The first question then, is “how much unemployment has the minimum wage caused?”. In this article, you state that “youth unemployment has doubled”. Yet whilst discussing this issue on facebook you state that you don’t know how much unemployment it has caused in the UK. So even if *some* youth unemployment was caused by the minimum wage, the vast majority may not have been. If it only caused a very small amount, then the benefits of the minimum wage may well have outweighed the costs.
Secondly, whilst I can see the logic of the argument as applied to small businesses, but when you look at how much managers and chief executives etc of many larger businesses earn, it is absurd to suggest they *can’t* afford to pay the minimum wage: if they didn’t, it would simply be because they didn’t want to. If they didn’t have to pay minimum wage, they would pay as little as possible, without necessarily creating any more jobs. With more people unemployed than jobs available, people would be willing to take anything, no matter how badly paid. There would be a ‘race to the bottom’.
Perhaps there could be a compromise. Businesses should publish the wage ratios of their highest to lowest paid staff. If the ratio is low enough, then the business does not have to pay a minimum wage, since this suggests they couldn’t afford to create new jobs otherwise. If it’s higher than a particular ratio, then they must pay minimum wage, since they can clearly afford it (even if it means cutting the pay of its highest earners to less extravagant levels).
For example, a small start-up clothes shop owner earning £15k could not justify employing someone on the minimum wage if the extra income brought into the shop would only cover paying for the minimum wage of an employee. If the employee worked for less than minimum wage, then it might make it worthwhile, providing both the owner with more income, and the employee with a job. Compare that with, say, Tesco, whose executives presumably earn millions per year, and store managers are probably on at least £40k. They can clearly afford to pay their staff *at least* minimum wage.
Thirdly, throwing Sweden and Denmark into the mix is a bit of a red herring. They’re *already* much more egalitarian societies, so have little need for the minimum wage. The UK is rather unequal in terms of income, at least compared to most European countries.