Maximum living wage

The minimum living wage is here. Too low, rather late, and with the promise of better by 2020, it is at least here. And with it comes the hope that those on the lowest wages may at last get a fairer share of the wealth they create. Not a fair share, but a fairer share.

Sadly, some employers are already complaining that they cannot afford to pay the new minimum living wage, while others are reducing hours to ensure that the cost of employment remains the same, even if the minimum living wage means that they have to up their game.

I can't avoid feeling irritation: do these employers not recognise that their argument is based on the assumption that their workers should not only give their sunny days to the company, but also subsidise its bottom line by accepting poor pay ?

Sadly, the minimum wage will not help close the inequality gap which flourishes in the UK. The distance between the top earners and the ordinary workers remains vast and is getting worse.

The Panama Papers remind us of what we already know, but try to block out of our minds: that society is governed in the interests of the very wealthy, and the very wealthy intend to stay that way by avoiding and evading tax in any way which keeps them on top.

Perhaps the minimum wage is a sop to distract us from the intolerable inequality which nobody wishes to address.

It is almost impossible to figure out how families manage where the minimum living wage is their sole source of income. And it is equally impossible to imagine what the very wealthy do to earn their vast salaries and bonuses. 

Maybe if we are serious about equality we ought to embrace the minimum living wage and introduce a maximum living wage.

It ought to be possible for a bunch of economists to figure out what figure constitutes the maximum that could reasonably be needed. The maximum living wage would not limit earnings. It would merely establish that the maximum which an individual could earn would be fixed - say at the level of the average house price, currently £220k. Above that, all earnings - not a fraction, but the whole - would automatically be paid into a fund for public services.

If the very rich wished to increase their earnings, they could add to the basic maximum by working for the community at the rate of the minimum living wage.

The maximum living wage would benefit both rich and poor alike: public services would be well funded, and all could benefit from them. The rich would avoid the public opprobrium which accompanies their stellar salaries. And the poor would have the security of knowing that the country had first-class public services.

If the government was serious at all about equality, it would look at rigorous ways of re-distributing wealth. The minimum wage does not even begin to tickle the surface, never mind scratch it. The maximum living wage might be a better start.

Lots of people might want to stockpile very large piles of money. The biggest change brought about by the maximum living wage would be that we would begin to consider what people needed rather than what they wanted.

We live today in the fifth largest economy on the planet. We have shrinking public services, an underfunded NHS straining under the demands placed on it, and educational internment which gives back very little for the years of childhood it steals. That ordinary people do not reap the benefit of national economic success screams at you. There are growing numbers using food banks, swelling numbers of homeless, and mental health services which would shame a banana republic.

All this needs to change. We need Government as if people matter, and we need to respect and reward those who really create the wealth. 

The maximum living wage would be a good start.