Can´t survive on salary without benefits. Doesn´t seem right.

[Fashionesta]

Just wondered if anyone else was in the same boat as feeling a bit miserable. Recently started new job, 31K a year, felt happy with that, potential to grow. Having done all my calculations and bills, if it were not for getting some money towards housing, I would be 300 pounds a month short :(

After pension I get around 1800 per month. Rent is 950 and I have one of the cheaper properties in my area so no ability to find anything cheaper - its me and DD in a 2 bed. No luxuries at all. Basic mobile phone on giff gaff 8 per month, no SKY etc, old car although paying off car loan of 150 month which bumps outgoings up. By the time I have paid all my bills, council tax, loan, after school club for DD and swimming lessons for her which I feel is essential, if it weren´t for the fact that I get some help towards rent, I would be -300 per month.

I generally feel like I earn a decent wage and panicking a bit about the situation. Not asking for a solution really as I think I am quite frugal, also sensible so pay for life insurance, car insurance, pet insurance and house insurance. Pay TV licence and so on. Shop at Tesco.

Anyone else don´t feel like they are getting by on what I actually consider a decent wage (although I realise in MN terms I am probably not earning much at all).'

Argh I just hate feeling poor all the time and I shouldn´t have to rely on benefits when on 31K surely!

Bloody well said @Iquitit

Applauding @Iquitit

Housing and social care are both public policy disasters and it's wrong that people are paid so little and charged so much just to live.

Another one applauding @Iquitit

In my eyes your job is a LOT harder than many well paid jobs, and not everyone could do it.

Sadly many only value high paying jobs that require difficult academic qualifications. Many of these jobs are actually detrimental to society - ie accountants helping big companies avoid tax, hedge funders messing with or economy.... in a fair world those people would be deemed less deserving of life’s luxuries. Not hard working people like you, who are actually benefitting society.

@2bazookas

Looking at your outgoings, I'd suggest you can't afford a pet because of the cost of food and insurance; and you can't afford swimming lessons.

Sorry, benefits are not provided to pay for pets and hobbies.

The benefits are calculated on things like wages, rent, child are etc so you're right, benefits aren't provided for hobbies and pets. The benefits op gets is to help pay for her childcare and rent. She uses THAT £300 for that and uses her wages to pay for the pets and hobbiesm. Seems reasonable to me.

Lack of housing; low quality, scarce social care; unaffordable pension contributions.

They're all the result of people living longer and longer.

If most of us died by 75, as was the case 30 years ago, these problems would not exist to the extent they now do.

No one (generalising) wants to fund/subsidise the volume of house building that's needed. When it is funded, no one wants the housing built next to them.

No one wants to pay hugely increased taxes to fund a decent level of social care.

No one wants the state pension age to be 75 - and even if that did happen it would cause real problems with availability of jobs for younger people.

What the solution is I don't know, but the root cause is right there in front of us.

And @Iquitit , I agree with all you're saying.

I agree with you, OP. Minimum wage is supposed to pay enough that someone working full time can keep a roof over their head and food on the table. It’s the minimum you need to survive. By today’s standards, not those of the 1950s. And someone earning more than the national average should be able to live comfortably. Not scrape by with top-ups from benefits. We’re a rich country, it’s ridiculous to say that living comfortably doesn’t include kids’ swimming lessons, ffs. I hate this race to the bottom.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/26/boris-johnson-tories-economy-rising-house-prices-wages

@SofiaMichelle

Lack of housing; low quality, scarce social care; unaffordable pension contributions.

They're all the result of people living longer and longer.

If most of us died by 75, as was the case 30 years ago, these problems would not exist to the extent they now do.

No one (generalising) wants to fund/subsidise the volume of house building that's needed. When it is funded, no one wants the housing built next to them.

No one wants to pay hugely increased taxes to fund a decent level of social care.

No one wants the state pension age to be 75 - and even if that did happen it would cause real problems with availability of jobs for younger people.

What the solution is I don't know, but the root cause is right there in front of us.

And @Iquitit , I agree with all you're saying.

Oh SofiaMichelle When I read your post I couldn't help but remember the 1976 film Logan's Run with Michael York. In that dystopian society people were killed off before they reached 30 years old, because society only honoured young people. You're right when you say we have an ageing population and the issue of social care for the baby boom generation has been a problem for the last three governments at least. When Covid 19 hit this country last year it seemed that the elderly were the most affected and likely to die. Yet the government did nothing to protect the care homes and carers couldn't get PPE or enough sanitiser. Call me cynical, but I wondered whether the government wanted to 'cull' the elderly generation by using this novel disease? The PM did talk about stacking bodies up rather than implementing a third lock down after all. They really don't seem to give a damn about the elderly generation that lived and served in the war or their carers.

@Iquitit 👏

The harsh reality OP is that we live in a country which is ridiculously expensive, and the government hasn’t upped the national living wage in accordance to inflation. We have a PM who spends £800+ on a roll of bloody wallpaper whilst others are scrimping by on what was once considered a decent salary.

lquitit I think you speak for all the working people in this country!

The 31k mentioned in the op is not even a low wage - in many parts of the country, for most people, 30k is an aspirational level of wage.

So many things have gone wrong in this country and it is just not sustainable.

They really don't seem to give a damn about the elderly generation that lived and served in the war or their carers.

Being a date pedant I really must correct that. Baby boomers did not serve in the wars. They are named for the population boom immediately after the wars: which replaced the loss of local life from those wars in one generation.

I’m going to get flamed for this but I’m going to say it anyway. I assume that all those people who think it unreasonable for the low paid to be topped up via the benefit system are completely fine with claiming child benefit - something that was introduced to repopulate the country after the war and which by rights, should have been phased out long ago.

You give those of us following the baby boomers the same opportunities for work that pays enough to match their standards of life against wages, and I will happily call for child benefit to be cancelled. It is being slowly phased out anyway.

The baby boomers were my parents generation, not that of a fantasy group of war heroes, so this is where it gets personal. They seem to have been demanding that I work harder and jump higher to supply them with luxuries that are denied to me, and my kids, for my entire life. Swimming lessons as a luxury ffs. Scouting too, nowadays. All these things were part of the living, turning economy - and now not part of the dying, freezing economy. They were part of investing effort in the young so that they grow up to be decent citizens. The decrease in facilities for that is our fault too, for the baby boomers.

@MayYouLiveInInterestingTimes. You give those of us following the baby boomers the same opportunities for work that pays enough to match their standards of life against wages, and I will happily call for child benefit to be cancelled. It is being slowly phased out anyway.

How is this different from what the OP is asking for with UC top ups ?

Sorry, benefits are not provided to pay for pets and hobbies

How can you see these as luxuries. I would much rather see benefits paying towards a pet and swimming lessons than cigarettes, take aways and sky tv! OP, it sounds to me like you prioritise well by seeing your pension and insurances as important. Don’t feel bad about needing benefits, your salary, however high it seems to some, is not enough to cover your normal living expenses. We can’t all move up north for a cheaper life. I hope things improve for you soon.

@JosieJasper. This is why I asked the question about child benefit. The OP is being castigated for having a pet and trying to ensure her child has swimming lessons whilst claiming benefit. Hand on heart, how many of the posters on here know people who use their child benefit exclusively for their child’s needs ? Amounts to the same thing and it’s so hypocritical it makes me want to scream.

pam are you trying to come up with a typical baby-boomer ‘gotcha’ argument saying that nothing has changed and the economic situation for families is no worse now? If so that one won’t wash.

In theoretical terms your question might have a fair basis, in that it shows there was a desire to support families in the past. But that is exclusively what child benefit is for - to support famiilies, and particularly to compensate women in some small way for having children (incidentally it’s been given out in various forms for a lot longer than since wartime and its function will have changed over time).

The real world value, on the other hand, has depreciated massively and as I said it’s effectively being phased out through that drop and the means-test requirement. Universal credit does not actually replace child benefit - both can be claimed together - and the op shows up a massive increase of scale in reliance on benefits just in order to meet living costs for 2 people,one of whom is a chiild with lower living costs, even on what is a professional level wage. That increase in scale makes it not remotely comparable in my eyes to the days when 1 full time unskilled labourers wage was enough to secure a living for a family with much lower housing costs, which typically included the cost of buying, not renting. Plus there is the additional point that that universal credit now goes to pay rent to a private landlord, thus directly involving a regular transfer of cash from the public realm to one specific private individual, whereas it could have been used to provide public facilities for the use of all.

[quote pam290358]@JosieJasper. This is why I asked the question about child benefit. The OP is being castigated for having a pet and trying to ensure her child has swimming lessons whilst claiming benefit. Hand on heart, how many of the posters on here know people who use their child benefit exclusively for their child’s needs ? Amounts to the same thing and it’s so hypocritical it makes me want to scream.[/quote]
Loads of people i know just save the child benefit so their kids end up with a 15k lump sum at age 18 !! Many don't need it at all but obviously claim it because they can.
My dh inherited a significant sum of money some years ago and we both work and don't have a mortgage to pay. We don't really need the Child benefit but to be honest it just goes on ds's bus fares to college and school lunches etc.

Having read your clarification above (x post), I’m not sure why you directed the question at me particularly as I’m not in that group of castigators. At all. Anyway, massive increase in scale of reliance is I think the main answer.

My original post re child benefit wasn’t directed at you. I asked the question because I just wasn’t sure of the point you were trying to make in response. It seems hypocritical of some people on this thread to criticise the OP for taking from one part of the benefit system whilst taking from another part themselves. Seems like the same thing to me, just a different source.

My apologies for being dense and mid-characterising you.

I realize the thread has moved on a bit and I'm glad it started some kind of debate. I am in a way shocked at those who actually think someone earning 30k should sleep on a sofa or move far away from family and friends. Is this what society in 2021 looks like. By this thinking a vast part of the population would be having pretty sub standard lives.

The idea that anyone who can't afford where they live should move is also wrong IMO. What will you do when you need a nurse, or fireman or who's going to work in your local shops? Or did you forget about these people. Surely the answer isn't to price people out but to lower housing costs alt give top ups which is happening now.

I don't have a lot else to say but liked the debate. For those frothing I've booked some outdoor activities for us this weekend but don't worry, got some money gifted from a grandparent so not spending your precious taxes!

I don't feel any guilt at all getting a few hundred quid a month from the government to allow me a basic standard of living IE a two bed place! My whole point of my original post was that I felt it was sad that on what I consider a decent salary should still require some government support.

Oh and to add to the pension contributions. I am super grateful for having an employer that provides a good pension scheme. First time in my life I'm paying into a pension like this. And yes it means I hopefully don't have to claim benefits on retirement so surely something positive?

@iquitit 🥰 wel said