Reading a couple of articles this morning about the minimum wage, and particularly about the history of opposition to it and how it was eventually brought about. Thoroughly interesting and somewhat humerous at points - predictions of 2million more unemployed spring to mind - but it got me thinking; has the minimum wage been a total success? I'm afraid the answer is no.
The minimum wage unfortunately exists on a premise of discrimination: The idea that a worker under the age of 22 is worth less than a worker over the age of 22. The minimum wage, whilst a brilliant concept and a practical success, should be equalised and extended to all people over the age of 16. I believe it is a travesty that I could get a job - hypothetically at my age a skilled job or trade - and still earn less than someone twice my age who qualified at the same time as me. Even in unskilled jobs such as retail, I could be employed as a checkout operator with two people in their forties and get paid 96p less. That is despite the fact that I am doing exactly the same job, paying the same rates of national insurance and the same percentage of tax, and potentially paying university fees of £5,000 per annum upwards! In the same vein, a school leaver or college student will earn £1.24 per hour less than me for working on the same checkout!
Is this right and fair? I don't think so. That is why we mustn't get complacent. There is still a long way to go regarding a minimum wage for all!
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