To think it’s crazy that National Minimum wage is £27k

Me and DH earn around 75k between us but he does work at least 55 hours a week and I work unsociable hours for that and I would say we still need to keep an eye on our money. We do have a toddler in nursery though and DH pays around £500 in child maintenance a month as well as pocket money, extra curriculars and his child’s phone bill.

My first flat 20 years ago cost me £475 a month for a 3 bed upper cottage flat, that same flat is now £1100 to rent today. Our mortgage is £900 a month for a 3 bed semi. I don’t know how people are surviving with rent prices these days.

A family with 2 kids and earning 20k a year will be entitled to benefits though. A couple over 25 with 2 children and no housing costs would be able to earn 36k a year before universal credit was zeroed out. More if they have housing costs.

Plus a family with one full time worker and one part time worker do not have an income of £20k, simply because, as is the point of the thread, NMW is 12.71 x 52 x 35 hours per week as a minimum for full time = £23k, or £26.4k for 40 hours.

If a full time and part time worker work 50 hours between them, that's £33k pa, but it would be a poor tradesman who's only earning NMW.

We get by on £30k. We don't go on holiday, although that's not related to money and we only have one car which we brought second hand but it's perfectly doable. There's 5 of us.
Admittedly my oldest two do pay a small amount of rent (£100 a month) but if they couldn't because they lost their jobs or whatever it wouldn't make a difference. We used to be far worse off when they were little literally living paycheck to paycheck.
Obviously prices have gone up but I think people expect too much sometimes, they want everything new and everything now, it's why a lot of people could live on less but choose not to.

Yes. If they have dependent children. Children grow up, some people do not have children. Yet they still earn minimum wage and do not get benefits

Deleting because I'm very late to the party!

I am aware of that. The poster I’m referring to has children though.

Most new cars costs more than £20k!??? £20k is below min wage. Figures don’t add up here

I think a big issue is the lack of differentiation too.

NMW can be paid to unskilled workers with no qualifications in entry level jobs - teens starting out for eg. It is also offered to workers with skills, experience, responsibility etc such a teaching assistants . Not much more is offered to workers with external qualifications such as lifeguards and Health Care Assistants. For only a pound or 2 more an hour you can be a qualified nurse with years of experience!

Bringing the NMW up is clearly necessary, because it is still not enough for a good standard of living but other wages need to go up commensurate with skills, experience and qualifications - and they don't!

That sounds quite low for a family of 5 and definitely in my town (just outside Manchester)- I assume you live in a 3 or 4 bedroom property - I feel most families would struggle on that if they weren’t in receipt of any other money, based on how much rent and council tax here is.

Do you get any benefits aside from child benefit?

And could you please give us a rough breakdown of your monthly costs
and if you rent or own?

Although I’ve just noticed your two oldest work so I guess they are adults with their own income on top of your 30K so that may explain some of it as you won’t be buying much for them.

Side note this is one reason why council tax is so unfair, a house with 3 or maybe 4 working adults isn’t paying much more in council tax than someone living alone - bonkers.

This seems a bit pointless unless you're posting some facts about relative average wage inflation, cost of living inflation.

Presumably minimum wage is propped up by decent benefits if you have kids.

No one in this country appears to be wearing rags or malnourished.

Some of that early increase of NMW went hand in hand with a reduction of tax credits and benefits.
It hasn't simply doubled in real terms.

Except the homeless...

Remember the poll tax?

Not old enough to remember it as such, but from what I know of it not sure if I agree with that either.

Personally I think number of working adults AND total income/wealth should be taken into account for council tax.

So you don’t get a situation for example 3 adults in a house on a low wage, paying more than one person who is a multi millionaire. But also you don’t get 4 adults On a low wage paying not much more than a single adult across the street on an even lower wage.

as I said, I don’t like the current system of council tax either for various reasons. I am no tax expert but I am sure smarter minds than me can figure out a fairer system than either the present council tax or the former poll tax.

I could go on but I will stop there 😆 because I know I was the one who mentioned CT but I’m not wanting to derail the thread any more than I have done lol

You wouldn’t be able to - you can’t just claim all benefits and not work unless there are reasons you cannot work.

And as a single person your benefits would be capped to just under 15000

Even the homeless dont dress in rags in the UK. Nor do they appear malnourished. Thankfully.

😱

Only for the people actually entitled to tax credits and benefits. Many people aren't.

Eg if they have no DC, or even if they have DC, if their partner works and earns more than a minimal salary, they won't be entitled to much, if anything.

It's simply not a given that people on NMW receives top ups.

If you’re working full time earning minimum wage the child element for 1 child is around £135/month for a single parent with a child living with them full time

Yes. Shocked face. But when was the last time you actually saw someone dressed in rags? Or barefoot? (Other than a crackhead who lost his shoes for a few hours). It's a good thing that it doesn't happen.

That's not strictly true. You can claim universal credit if you are unemployed and looking for work.

Mmm, you're not correct. Clearly I'm older than you but we saw enormous inflation in the 1970s and I recall my mortgage interest rising to over 13%! That said, I appreciate it's tough but, on the other hand, the notion of "normal" now includes many things that some of us would consider to be luxuries. I reckon it is perfectly possible to live on < £27k but the luxuries in life will be few imo.

I probably should have added our rent is low because the house is owned by a friend of MIL so we only pay £900 a month rather than the £1,500+ it would cost otherwise.
I don't currently work as I get CA for caring for our son. Car expenses are pretty low as everything is in walking distance (apart from DH work but he often gets a work van).
Food is pretty low as all the children get free meals either at work or school so they often don't want another cooked meal in the evening.
Obviously things like this do make a difference and we're lucky with costs in some ways. Everything is going up though so I appreciate we may not be in such a good financial position a year from now.