Minimum Wage: Too Much of a Good Thing?
Analysis
BBC
4.6 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 24 July 2017
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Has the initial success of the minimum wage meant politicians have extended the policy to damaging levels? All the major political parties agree: the measure has been a success, and in the 2017 election all promised substantial rises in the rate by 2020. The Conservatives are aiming for a £9 national living wage by the end of the decade, and not to be outdone, Labour promised £10 for all but the under-18s. Paul Johnson, director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies, asks why left and right have both adopted this once controversial policy. And could the current bidding war of big increases undermine the positive effects it has had over its eighteen-year history? Producer: Kate Lamble.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.6 | My name's Linda Davies and I commission podcast for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.4 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable |
| 0:14.3 | experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC |
| 0:20.4 | makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:40.0 | Thanks for downloading analysis from the BBC. |
| 0:42.0 | We're the program about the ideas from the BBC. |
| 0:42.6 | We're the program about the ideas behind the news. |
| 0:45.2 | Now we all love the minimum wage, don't we? |
| 0:47.8 | And that includes Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. |
| 0:51.6 | But he asks, can we have too much of a good thing? |
| 0:57.0 | In this year's election, the Conservatives seem to be obsessed with strange shrubs. |
| 1:08.0 | As I say, there isn't a magic money tree that suddenly delivers all the money that everybody wants for the spending everybody wants. |
| 1:13.2 | We have to stop thinking as you do that there's a magic money tree. |
| 1:17.0 | They've been talking about them for a while. |
| 1:19.0 | It's as if they think there is some magic money tree. let me tell you a plain truth there isn't but for the |
| 1:26.0 | last 18 years it looks like Britain has had its own version of the magic money tree we |
| 1:32.4 | guarantee that everyone, 25 and over working in the UK, |
| 1:36.0 | will be paid at least one penny every five seconds, |
... |
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