It’s also clumsy. It can never go beyond a certain point economically speaking, due to the fact that it’s a one-size fits all approach. London University could afford to pay £6.70 p/h — not all businesses would necessarily be able to. NMW can also have perverse consequences if set too high, even if businesses can afford it.

But none of this goes against the fact that NMW has had a positive impact. People shouldn’t think the fight is won for good pay conditions because of NMW — that would be a huge mistake. But people shouldn’t dismiss its positive effects, either.

Are you saying that these considerations: “b) how can we add a few pence to make ourselves like a good employer and compete for good staff in the labour market; and then sometimes/often/always ignores the questions of c) what can we actually afford to pay? d) what are our employees entitled to, and what do they need to live on e) how are their unions putting their case and with what backing?” wouldn’t have been made prior to the introduction of NMW?

Your premise of NMW “pushing pay down” seems very ill-founded. You cite a lower median pay settlement for the low-paid sector, but this by itself shows nothing, even when coupled with an “intuition” that seems to have been pulled out of nowhere. In the midst of a recession, it is, sadly, not surprising that the median pay settlement is lower for the low-paid sector than for the rest of the economy, as this is easiest for companies. Are you suggesting it would have been *less* easy if there were now NMW to enforce minimum standards? I doubt it, somehow.

Secondly, you cite what is, in fact, information which is out of date: “As if that’s not enough evidence [I think you'll guess my view here], there’s also the ample media coverage of the way companies who want to have now adapted to the NMW by taking tips … into account, and making that part of the total.” — but “topping up” the minimum wage with tips has in fact now been banned. And again, would this have not happened prior to NMW? I doubt it.

Chris – Right, prosperity for all. Or as new labout might say “for the many, not the few”

They don’t get it do they? They know so little about socialism that they don’t realise that success, ambition and the pursuit of wealth have always had a central role. It’s just that for socialists these things aren’t mere aspirations that only a few can ever achieve, they’re realistic goals that workers as a whole can reach through collective action.

I’m not suggesting that the NMW wasn’t very useful in 1998, and esp. in 1999 when it was increased by 10% on its previous level (or it may have been 2000), the highest annual increase it had. Back then it was a welcome political intervention.

What I am suggesting is that the employers have now learnt to deal with it, lobby the LPC effectively, and use it as a mechanism to hold down the wages of the very same group that benefited 10 years ago, while the Labour Party hierarchy naively celebrate its 10th birthday (a while back)and think the job is done, and that collective bargaining for this group of hard-to-unionise workers is not needed, because people in a far-away Commission, who have a vested interest in maintaining the cosiness of a year on year small NMW increase, backed by researchers who ‘understand’ their brief from the LPC and present their research findings accordingly, are supposedly doing that bargaining for them. All the data I see in the LPC report I reference suggests the opposite to me, and suggests that the NMW now does more harm than good, although I acknowledge that causality (NMW leads to employers holding lowest wages down) is hard to establish from the data provided.

As I said, I’ve no huge problem with the LPC (though I think Chris Dillow’s argument against it is persuasive), but I do think it could become an excuse for not getting on with the real job of power redistribution, just as I think the NMW has proved to be. If the LPC/NMW was actually effective in doing what it’s supposed to do, would there have been a call for a Living Wage campaign at London University, for example?

The more signatures, the more the banksters will be shitting themselves.