Supermarket Low Pay

Rates of pay for the lowest earners at the big four supermarkets are between £6.50 and £7.50 an hour and many of their employees need state benefits just to make ends meet. On Newsnight they estimated that this costs some £50 a month per employee on average.

The idea of a Living Wage at around £8.50 was floated and it would seem fair to employees of such large businesses, so perhaps all businesses with a staff of 50 or more should have to meet the Living Wage. Despite the large profits and high executive pay these companies would have good cause to be upset by this.

I would suggest that National Insurance should be cut by a couple of percentage points in order to lower the costs for businesses to employ people. The nett cost to the tax man should not be that significant due to the corresponding drop in benefits paid out.

Almost all the extra money paid to such low earners goes straight back into the economy, some in direct taxes and others through indirect taxes (VAT) and the knock on effect of increased spending on the high street.

For a just society we have to aim for everyone to have the opportunity to work and we also need to find ways to reduce the consumption rate of all natural resources. Much better to spend tax money on getting people into work than artificially reduce the cost of non-renewable resources such as fossil energy.