CAN ENDLESS AND REPETITIVE DISCUSSION OF SPECIAL PLANS FOR LOW PAY UNDER SUCCESSIVE GOVERNMENT S HAS TENDED

TO OBSCURE ONE CARDINAL FACT. (this is what happen to Britain in about six month; the PRACITICES go back to 1967, enough is enough will need to moved on; it was so difficult for everybody to leaved; what will need to survival is to work; Ref Bible said, the person the is not work is not supposed to eat; but if government is not creating work, it will not be any GROWTH, this just like Israelite journey; or merry-go-round; or rounder - rounder the circle; this suffering is too hard on poor; Rich are Richer more and Poor are Poorer twice more; lolllll; what will need is job, not benefit; this is my CAMPAIGN for Job; will should not say what Ex- PM, say , British job for British people, is not fair; Benefit cannot used to do anything anymore; PM, George Osborne, Marvin king, this document again is for the children to creating job for them, please). The low paid are much like the rest of us. Their economic prospects depend on general economic policies rather than on specific and (usually chimerical) policies for dealing with low pay. The rate of growth of their real earnings depends primarily on real rates of growth of the economic. An extra one per cent on real GNP might be a better tonic for the low-paid than the FTS bill. The pattern of debate has clear political consequences in two main ways. First, the advocates of the poor have let themselves be shut off into a special lobby in which they appeared only to be concerned with policies for social security. No challenge has been made on the central ground of general economic policy and its effects on the low-paid. Secondly, the debate on low pay in employment has concentrated methods of raising pay as if employment could be left to take care of itself. But plans for a minimum wage or even strong trade union pressure in favour of the lower paid are likely to achieve little in a slack labour market. A minimum wage is bound to have some employment effects falling particularly hard on marginal workers whose work rate is not high because of personal disabilities. Trade union pressure for differential increases will have some of the same employment effects and neither government nor trade union policies will help workers who do not have jobs at all whether they are registered unemployed or people who have left the labour force altogether. The most serious present threat to the interests of the low-paid is not the absence of a minimum wage, but the extent to which we have slipped away eerily, almost without noticing it from the post-war, targets of full-employment . It is of little use to a low-paid worker to be told that society has guaranteed his earnings levels in employment if he cannot get a job at all. The importance of expanding employment opportunities to the low-paid becomes clear once we take a sensible view of the causes of low pay. Basically there are two main lines of thought. The first which would be favoured by economists whatever their political persuasion stresses economic determinism as a cause of low pay. The low-paid are such because their productivity is low. Low-paid workers would tend to have one or more of a number of handicaps: Jack of skill, mental or physical handicap, age, or lack of information about job opportunities. The second approach favoured by non-economists tends to put weight on what might be called the David Copperfield theory of low-pay. This is that the low-paid are such because of their

own lack of bargaining power. The first priority then becomes for the organised labour movement to shame employers into paying better wages. Certainly there are numerous eases of exploitation not least in the public sector where 58.3 per cent of the lowest paid male manual workers (on 1968 data0 are concentrated. There is a great deal of room for trade union pressure on bad employers and for stricter enforcement by government of Wages Council Orders. But the David Copperfield theory lacks plausibility as a general theory of low pay. Interms of the bargaining power theory of low pay, expanding job opportunities become a matter of secondary importance. Large differential increases will not have much effect in reducing employment. But in terms of the economic theory, job opportunities become a matter of prime importance, and it is in this context that we need to look at recent event in the labour market. Accumulating evidence of a number of different kinds now suggests that the labour market has become terribly bleak for workers who are not young, highly skilled or mentally and physically capable of maintaining a fast work rate the kinds of workers who make up the bulk of the low-paid. Their problem is now not one of earnings levels but the stoker and more anguished one of how to find a job at all. The labour market is becoming bleaker, too for a second group those who are not neceearily handicapped, but who were working in contracting and low-paid industries. Finally, all problems of personal handicap and industrial location have become much worse for people in development areas and worst of all for people in isolated communities within development areas. Conventionally the unemployment figures in conjunction with the vacancy figures are taken as the measure of pressure on the labour market. But we know that many people on losing their jobs do not register as unemployed and leave the labour force altogether. Thus married women and workers past retirement age would tend to join the labour reserve the group who are not registered as unemployed but would be interested in a job if there seemed any chance of landing one. Many people disappear into the night without stopping off at the labour exchange. Thus in addition to looking at the unemployment figures, we need to look at the figures for employment. These show a most troubling picture. While unemployment has shown a rise over the past year from 2.3 per cent in November 1969 to 2.5 per cent (seasonally adjusted) in November 1970, employment has shown a sickening fall. Recent figures are not available for the whole economy. But employment in the aggregate in manufacturing, agriculture, mining, construction and public utilities which account for about half of total employment had shown by October 1970 a 2.6 per cent fall on the level in August 1969. In practical terms this means about 250,000 fewer jobs in this part of the economy alone over a period of twelve months. Part of this fall reflects the rapid rundown of the mining industry and the contraction of agricultural employment but there has still been a fall of 1.84 per cent of employment in manufacturing. Movements in employment of course reflect other factors than the greater availability of fulltime education may reduce the working population. But over a period of twelve months these factors cannot explain such as significant fall. It reflects a genuine decline in job opportunities. This decline, in its scale and pattern, is fraught, with particular peril for the low-paid for two main reasons. First, it reflects a decline in the general level of activity of the economy in relation to productive potential. The demand for labour has turned down in all except a handful of export-orientated industries. In these circumstances workers whose personal productivity is

low, in who firms have invested little in terms of training and who are in the latter and most inactive part of their working lives in short, the low-paid will tend to be laid off first. At the same firms will hold on to highly skilled and or young workers when short-term consideration would suggest laying them off. Secondly, the fall in the general level of employment has been in part brought about by specific structural shifts which have hit particularly hard those industries within manufacturing which employ large numbers of low-paid manual workers. Thus while employment in mechanical engineering a highly paid industry only fell by 0.7 per cent from October 1960 to October 1970, employment in the textile industry fell by 6.58 per cent and in clothing and footwear by 4.04 per cent over the same period. Thus structural shifts have tended to reinforce the serious effects of the general down-turn in the demand for labour on the fortunes of the low-paid. Many of the low-paid are employed in the public sector and in the services industries, and not in manufacturing. For these sectors the employment figures are not as fresh but just as ominous. Between June 1968 and June 1969 employment in the distributive trades fell by 2.16 per cent and in public administration by 1.53 per cent. The fall in public sector employment comes after a number of years in which it had been increasing rapidly. The only parts of the economy to show real growth in employment were the white collar and professional sectors insurance and banking and professional services. But it is of little comfort to the lower-paid that the demand for computer programmers is rising rapidly. The employment figures over the past two years are not the only cause for disquiet. A further worrying piece of evidence is to be found in changes in the official figures for the working population the total of those economically active over a longer period. A recent issue of the DEP Gazette attempted to explain a notable mystery: that the working population fell by 359,000 between 1966 and 1968 and by 440,000 between 1966 an d1969. The effect of policies of successive governments has been to shrink the size of the British economy and of the British labour force year by year. In relation to the DEP s earlier forecasts of working population, the fall comparing the actual figures with the forecast figure for 1969 is more than a million: 1,062,000. The forecast was made on the assumption that the pressure of demand for labour would remain at its 1966 level. With full employment now a legend fading into an Arthurian twilight, the most important shortfall is between actual working population in 1966 and actual in 1068 69, rather than between actual and forecast working population. Part of the fall can be explained in terms of increased educational opportunities people in full-time studies do not count as economically active. Part too can be explained by reducing economic activity by the over sixty-fives reflecting better pension arrangements. But alarmingly there has been a significant fall of 120,000 in the numbers of men of prime working age 25-64 in employment. The DEP attempts to explain this fall. It thinks that there have been 15,000; it is left groping for an explanation. They have vanished into the night. The third piece of evidence of the slackness of the labour market lies in the unemployment figures. These are usually quoted in terms of the overall rate currently 2.6 per cent of the labour force. But five-sixths of the unemployed are men. The rate for men is 3.5 per cent. The labour market for women is in many ways separate from that for men. Thus the overall

unemployed rate understates the slackness of the market in which the low-paid male worker is attempting to find a job. In the same way unemployment rates in the most hard hit parts of the development areas understate the slackness of the labour market thus in Sunderland in September 1970 the overall unemployment rate given in the DEP Gazette was 6 per cent. But the rate for male workers would be close to 8 per cent. In Pontypool the overall rate was 8.4 per cent but the male rate would have been nearer 10.5 per cent. The chances of a young fir worker getting a job in the face of such heavy unemployment are poor enough. But an unskilled worker aged fifty and in poor health faces, in such places, the certain prospect of fifteen years of rotting in idleness before he can even draw his old-age pension. It is not only by their general policies for demand management that governments have added to the plight of the lower-paid. One of the main fiscal policies of the Labour Government the selective Employment Tax has had exactly the same effect. Whatever its merits in stimulating productivity in the service industries. SET is undeniably a swingeing tax on the lower paid. The method by which it is currently levied as a per capital tax rather than as a percentage of payroll, twists the knife even further into the low-paid if we are right in our basic assumption that lowpay is related to low performance. This is a flat rate tax which falls equally on workers whatever their levels of efficiency. As a matter of logic, it can be predicted that firms would lay-off in the face of such a tax workers with the lowest efficiency levels. They would tend to substitute skilled workers for unskilled workers and women for men as the tax fails more heavily on men than on women. My Recent research that of Professor Reddaway has shown that the tax has had some of the predicted effects. One quarter of retailers who took part in the enquiry had concentrated on skilled rather than on unskilled staff. One-eight reported the dismissal of staff beyond retiring age. One trade association commented: In the large business there are frequently long-service employees whose standard of efficiency is below normal, and who are retained for sentimental reasons or out of a sense of responsibility. The imposition of SET has forced a number of firms to review their policy towards these people . The overall effect on employment has not been large but it has been on workers who would find it very difficult to get another job. Firstly, recent events are the labour market suggests that full-employment is under threat. We are not yet back to the 1930s, but in some parts of the country we are half-way there. Lack of job opportunities hits many but it hits the low-paid most of all, become they have the least to offer in the labour market. Thus there is need for all those interested in poverty to press as a matter for first priority for general reflection of the economy. The best immediate help to the low-paid would be a growing ecomeconomy with abundant job opportunities. Schemes for minimum wages have a place in such a context of growth but until we have such a context they are of secondary importance. Secondly, recent events suggest the need to arrange tax policies so that they do not fall crushingly on happicapped Workers. Removal of disincentive to the employment of low-paid

workers needs to be accompanied by policies for increasing their skill and the information about jobs available to them. Thirdly, the evidence together with other pieces of evidence suggests the need for a reassessment of the problem of the problem of the work-sky. The number of long-term unemployed, those who have been out of work more than six months, has more than doubled to 172,000. About one in three of all unemployed, those who have been out of work more than six months, has more than doubled to 172,000. About one in three of all unemployed have been out of work more than six months and one in five for more than a year. It could well be that many of the work-shy appear such because they cannot find work. The reason they cannot work is that there is none to find. PM, what happen to me must not happen again; the people who demonstrate war in my four bed room property, are starting again; they must be punished, the justice has to be done. The owner of the house l rent, is the leader, but you said, everything should be stop and cancelled, this people are not learned because they get free; there sadness people. Practising terrorist, and torture, ; they has business, house , and car, there wicked ; what happen to me must happen to them too, everybody matter, it should be equally, no more two tier. To God be the Glory; we did not need to Trigger or killed anybody before we making growth. God said thus shall not kill. Everything is complicated, so will has to go back to the broad and do it properly; MP PM PRAVATE ADVICER JOUNALIST CIVIL SERVANT INDEPENDENT EXPERTY