Dean Young, Liverpool Socialist Students organizer

Many young people expected Starmer’s New Labour government would be a change from the Tories but not even two years in, our situations are much worse despite Labour’s election pledges. Youth unemployment has gone up to 16.1% in February, the highest rate in five years. And another U-turn appears to be on the horizon. Under pressure from big business, the government is considering shelving the proposal to equalise the minimum wage for those over 18.

I recall being 19 and working in Burger King for just £6.83 an hour, then around £3 less than my co-workers who happened to be four years older than me. They were hardly living the life of Riley themselves, but it is not fair to have workers doing the same job be paid at different basic rates. It should be an equal day’s pay for an equal day’s work.

Bad excuses

The excuse from the mouthpieces of megacorporations, such as Luke Johnson the former chairman of Pizza Express, that it is simply too expensive to pay workers, is a farce. Pizza Express, for example, had a revenue of £442 million in 2025. The problem isn’t that people on minimum wage are being paid too much, it is that corporations and billionaire boards are seeking short-term profits at the expense of millions of working-class young people. And the government subsidises these employers paying low wages through Universal Credit payments; more people who receive benefits work than not.

What is needed is well-paid jobs that are sustainable. We need a £15 per hour minimum wage immediately for all workers, including those under 18, as a step towards a real living wage. We need trade union struggle that fights in the interests of young workers, including for the wages we need.

It is only ‘impossible’ to deliver a £12.71 minimum wage for all because the capitalist system operates on the basis of short-term profits for a few over a plan which serves the needs of the majority of us. And to those who say they cannot afford this, we say open the books and show us where the profit is going. And if small businesses genuinely cannot pay the wages we need to live on then they should be subsidised, taking the wealth away from the big bosses.

There is a socialist alternative to the capitalist race to the bottom. By nationalising under democratic working-class control the commanding heights of the economy – big business and the banks – we could allocate jobs to all who need them and properly train up employees. Capitalism doesn’t wish to invest in young people; increasingly young people do not wish to invest their support in capitalism either!