Isn't the thinking behind the minimum wage increase specifically to lift people out of the threshold to claim WTC, especially as the threshold has been slashed?
Working should mean that you are reliant on wages as living costs as opposed to top ups definitely.

what are you talking about?

working means nothing more than valuing yourself. you decide that you will give away a certain amount of hours of your life. You are only worth what someone is willing to pay for those hours of your life. Obviously people with more rare skills are worth more, people with no skills are worth less. i don't see the problem.

if you spend all day doing nothing, and not improving yourself, then why would you expect someone to value your skills. If you spend your time learning skills and acquiring talents, then of course you will be paid highly.

I don't understand the concept that all people should be paid highly if they have no unique talents or skills.

I'm discussing the thread topic Alex.

i'm distracted by the magnificent angelica houston.

I don't understand this logic at all tbh.

If someone works full-time, they should be able to live a relatively comfortable life and not fear that they can't pay the bills. Shouldn't be based on "unique talents or skills".

You are correct. At a minimum, it is everyone's basic right to be able to earn enough from full time employment to be comfortable. After that, the considerations of supply and demand come in to effect.

the fact that new labour under Blair made the poor poorer, makes no change in today's tory party, because they continued the legacy after the last tory government, for 13 years, labour ripped off the working man, and just added the bigger line for unemployment, broken britain, and greedy companies who want workers on poor wages, 16 to 24 year olds, get paid really poorly, why a large amount of them won't vote,

I suppose Thatcher was a benevolent soothing maternal darling of a leader? :/

That's very American Dream Alex but what you have to understand, I suppose, is that the gulf between avaiblable wages and the cost of living in the UK is much higher than in the US. Even if you are right and it's true that people should be paid proportionately to what they have to offer - which I accept to an extent - the other issue is that even at the very bottom end of that scale, people have to be paid enough to be able to sustain themselves. We have a big "problem" with "in work benefits" (money paid by the government to people who are actually in full time employment) because, quite simply, full time employment on minimum wage is not enough to cover rent, utilities and food. There needs to be a sustainable baseline.

There's a temptation to say "well people should just improve themselves and then they'll have more blah blah" but no matter how many people do that, there still needs to be a sustainable low-wage work force that can afford to live. Highly-paid surgeons can't operate without cleaning staff, Law firms can't keep their doors open without receptionists... etc.

i disagree. the fact is companies were using cheap labor to make the product artificially cheap. now people will have to pay the fair price. If it's a good product people will buy it no matter what, rich and poor people will buy it any price. If it's a good product it should be sold for what it's worth.

Slave labor is never okay, and paying people less than their worth is slave labor.