IMW

We have the Intercounty Minimum Wage set to pay £5 per day and £3 on Sundays. We could increase IMW pay per day to £6 (game max) and reduce the Sunday payouts to £2 to smooth out the weekly cash flow a little, without changing the amounts. I propose we do this, unless anyone knows reasons why we want to leave payouts until Sundays.

Furthermore, I get no figures on how much we actually pay out in IMW wages. Did anyone ever work this out (perhaps from miners wages?) before, in order to set our payment rates, or have we always used these numbers as an unquestioned default? If our mines reach maximum employment capacity there could be a case for increasing this IMW payout, as the mines are set for optimal profits at their current levels.

That is a default setting.

I don't know that anyone has ever used this option. I don't see why they would.
In addition to the mines there is always the lake, orchard, or forest that would pay much more.

True, but in Forest towns you can find yourself without option as the number of loggers is restricted by the number of axes.

I found myself working for minimum wage once, thanks to my "friends" getting me drunk the night before and not being able to get a job, then in the morning the mines and forest were full.

Actually, that incident was the basis for some very good RP in the Somerset Armed Service, as that act was the birth of my Deamon Drill Sergeant persona

well mostly this wage in all france is at 5 pounds only because is a direct lost for the county to paid that.

So the idea of the french is to push this people to work in church and don<t use this option at leats church give them RP and cost nothing to the county

Reducing the IMW to the minimum possible, as Hypno suggests, may be a good idea. Since we don't really know how much it costs us, it might be better to discourage this type of work, and instead provide other kinds of low paid work, which we could measure, and which could be of more use. I'm thinking of ideas such as paying people to report market conditions to us, or to be buying agents for us, or for posting interesting things in the forums which make Somerset more active. To be eligible for such a payout (a small amount only) perhaps their local mine should be full that day too.

On the other hand, if our citizens really start to use the IMW because they can't find any other work, we may also need to encourage more people to hire rather than work on their own fields, though higher hiring rates will mean less profit for us from our mines. And there is the trade off between keeping the IMW pay low to save money, and helping our citizens get richer. I don't have a strong feeling either way, as I suspect that IMW isn't used very much.

I think we might all agree that the first thing we need to encourage is filling our mines with workers. So perhaps until we achieve that goal, IMW should be low as Hypno suggests. I'm wondering, can we reach a civilised consensus on whether the council's view is that we should raise IMW, lower it, move less of it to Sunday payouts, or leave it alone. I don't know whether any previous Sheriff's have consulted council on this, as there is no in game requirement for a consensus. It might not look good politically for either party to tell the electorate that they lowered the IMW rates (though reasons such as encouraging mine activity could be used), and though it probably wouldn't cost very much to raise them either there could be criticism of wasting council funds on useless jobs. I wonder if this is why no one ever messed with IMW in Somerset before?

I believe raising the IMW would be counter-productive, as the county receives no benefit from people who choose that option. It should be a very unattractive choice for that reason. I think that lowering it has never been discussed in Somerset (after a fast perusal of the dicscussion topics in the RK Somerset Council forum, going back to the establishment of the county), would save us little (if any) money, and could be counterproductive should newbies be unable to find other work - at least 5 pounds (the daily payout) would allow them to purchase a bag of corn, or a loaf of bread in Vana's tavern .

I don't know what options are available, though. Perhaps if the wage could be lowered to 5 pounds, with all of it paid immediately, then working for the church would be more attractive.

I don't think it is used often. I don't think it needs to be changed.

Yes, the minimum IMW, as Hypno says most of France pays, is £5 on the day and nothing on Sundays. The maximum possible would be £11, paid as £6 on the day and £5 on Sundays. We currently pay £5 on the day and £3 on Sundays.

(And as an aside, I can't manage to sustain my bread price for £5 every day in my tavern, I have it set to £5.95 most of the time and cover tavern tax from the odd jobs I do when I can't find any affordable flour for baking.)

Hypno wrote:

well mostly this wage in all france is at 5 pounds only because is a direct lost for the county to paid that.

So the idea of the french is to push this people to work in church and don<t use this option at leats church give them RP and cost nothing to the county

I agree with hypno here

Yes, I agree better the church as a last resort, 5 pounds and a RP.