Creating jobs

Our government keeps some people out of work even if they would have been willing to work for a wage at which a job would have been created for them.

A minimum wage goes hand-in-hand with a means-tested benefits system, to prevent low-paid workers from being caught between two stools - no longer in receipt of benefits, but not in receipt of sufficient pay to get by.

The replacement of benefits by a Basic Income makes a minimum wage unnecessary, as any earnings would be additional to the Basic Income and could therefore only ever increase a worker's disposable income, however low the wage. And no one would be obliged to accept a job at such low pay that they would struggle to live on it, as they would always have the Basic Income to fall back on.

But many people might feel that it was worth working for significantly less than the current minimum wage, as any wage would result in a person's disposable income increasing by a significant proportion of that wage.

Many jobs might be created that are not viable at the current level of the minimum wage, and not worth accepting given the loss of benefits under the current system. Britain and her workers would become much more competitive against the foreign competition.