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Multimillionaire Next boss dismisses Living Wage and calls £6.70/h “enough to live on”

Next boss Lord Wolfson has been criticised for criticised for being out of touch after he dismissed the Living Wage campaign, saying that £6.70 per hour is “enough to live on”.

The Tory peer claimed that the £6.70 per hour Next pays its employees, which is just 3% above the minimum wage, was a good amount for many of the company’s staff.

He said:

“A living wage for a student is different for someone supporting a family. I think there are a lot of people for whom £6.70 is enough to live on.”

Next’s £6.70 per hour starting pay applies only to workers aged 21 and over.

Wolfson, who is worth an estimated £112m and earns a basic salary of £350 per hour, nearly 100 times more than Next employees, declared that paying staff a living wage, set at £7.85 across the country and £9.15 in London, had no basis in reality and would prevent him from opening future stores.

Critics derided his comments, which came as Next reported that its annual profits were up 12.5% to £782m, as hypocritical.

Rhys Moore, director of the Living Wage Foundation, commented:

“Thousands of Next’s staff need to claim benefits just to make ends meet. Very profitable companies are, in effect, receiving a taxpayer subsidy.”

source: http://descrier.co.uk/business/multimil ... o-live-on/

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Typical Tory, milking the taxpayer while complaining about scroungers.

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http://wingsoverscotland.com/ http://www.newsnetscotland.com/

While these companies are doing everything they can not to contribute to the tax coffers. Imo if a company has staff claiming top ups to live the company should pay more in tax.

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

When it says "benefits" which benefits does it actually mean? It may well be that it is not benefits at all and it is tax credits. Or do you class them as the same? The people may be choosing to work part time to suit their family life. Are you saying that these people should be paid a full time wage for part time work or should they be allowed to top up their earnings with whatever benefit that they are entitled to?
If they are working full time hours then yes, they should be paid at least the living wage and before you ask, yes, my employees are all paid above the living wage.

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Grandad,

I wasn't going to ask about your employees Mr Paranoid Obviously if somebody is only working part time then they should only earn part time and for the record I do class working tax credit as a benefit what else could it be classed as? Some have to claim housing benefit because they don't earn enough or they can't get enough hours, others are claiming working tax for the same reason. You can not possibly think it's ok for large companies to make huge profits and have their employees claiming benefits because they can't get enough hours or they don't earn enough money anyway

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

Or more to the point earn gazillions whilst their employees wages are effectively topped up by the f*cking tax payer

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Don't forget that many of them don't want to work full time or more hours BECAUSE they will lose their benefits.

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Grandad,

that's wouldn't be the best quote for your potential constituents tbh

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

The way that works is because they don't earn enough full time to live so they opt for part time because of the benefits they get at the tax payers expense rather than the decent wages at the employers expense

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

And you believe that crap.

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Grandad,

Obviously there are situations where wages are kept deliberately low and company's are making excessive profits and something needs to be done about that.
lets face it, that situation is rife within our own trade. I have given this example before. Even in our town. I have had the policy that I want drivers to be able to earn a decent living. Which is why they basically just pay me the running costs of the vehicles. They don't pay any percentage at all. When the rate goes up at night or bank holiday, they don't pay any extra at all they keep the money. In fact once they have driven 200 miles in a week the rate that they pay me goes down. Drivers choose the hours they want to work. There are other drivers with other firms who do nothing but complain about how little they are taking home. The hours that they are told to work etc. Now they all know that they can take home so much more if they were driving for me but they choose not to do it. Why don't they want to come and earn more money?

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Grandad,