Budget: 'I can't afford to leave home on £1,500 a month' and other claims.

[dessertz]

The BBC are focussing on a few brave volunteers to see how they will be impacted by the budget. Today's headline focuses on a 23 year old apprentice who is hoping for a rise in pay so he can leave home:
BBC News - Budget 2024: 'I can't afford to leave home on £1,500 a month' - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyv8y68e25o. Surely £1500 would be enough to afford a flatshare in Newbury? I mean, it might not stretch to a batchelor pad, but a flatshare should be affordable. It's more than most students live on at the same age. He is being paid reasonably for an entry-level job, and his pay will presumably go up when he qualifies.

The other one I didn't understand (in the same article) is the single mum earning £150k who thinks she is being punished for having children because she's earning too much to qualify for child benefit. 🤔

Hopefully the beeb just took their comments out of context. 🤷‍♀️

It's very naive to think the BBC put out a call asking for 'volunteers' for this kind of thing.

Researchers will have a list of contacts and their bias and agenda will determine who they pick. I'll put money on Allana already being on their radar and somebody thought that's a double tick, elderly and trans.

And as Mmmnotsure said, thereby excluding the story of seventy year old women with meagre pensions after decades of poorly paid work, child raising gaps and elderly parent responsibilities. Of whom there are millions in this country.

In all fairness I read a separate article about a homeless 75 year old woman on the BBC this morning.
How many woman have not paid as much into their pension as men because they've been raising the children only for the man to leave them destitute

I was wondering why a person who was ex army, ex navy and a former social worker had retired with such a low pension.

Traditionally a studio flat was one with two rooms. A separate bathroom included, with a kitchen annex sort of in/off the main room with room for white goods, a proper cooker etc. That main room big enough for a double bed, small sofa, coffee table, wardrobe, chest of drawers/other small storage unit and TV on top of it. A self contained property.

A bedsit was similar but with a shared bathroom and laundry facilities, no ensuite or proper kitchen.

I also read that story about the homeless 75 year old woman. A good piece of reporting.

But it doesn't cancel out the dishonesty of the BBC in pushing their agenda. Allana is not a typical pensioner and yet the article portrays them as a little white haired old lady who is struggling.

No, they've been trailing the budget news for days if not weeks, and at the bottom of each story there has been a "Get in touch" link aimed at people worrying how the budget will impact them or wanting to ask questions. There is always a "Can we contact you?" permission box. That is what I meant by "volunteer."

Sunlight50 · Yesterday 20:48

With people on benefits able to earn around £30k a year and minimum wage going up it’ll soon all be ok. Dossing is the new way to live under Labour

ODFOD. Our youngest is on NMW whilst looking for his first qualified, professional role and works like a Trojan. WTAF are you talking about?

I'm guessing it's these two snapshots of the BBC website that are being referred to.

A house share is better though, as long as you've got good housemates who won't shaft you financially by refusing to pay their share of the rent/bills, because although everyone only has their room there's also a fully functioning kitchen and a communal living room, maybe a garden too. In an HMO you might not have any of that, but at least there's no shared finances so as long as you pay up and behave you're not getting evicted.

You earned almost the same as him, 20 years ago.
20 years.

On a full salary, after a 4 year university degree, not an apprentice training wage - ie. into a professional career. People in my position these days are earning 2-3x what I did straight out of uni

The sit bit of a bedsit is your bed!
They weren't big rooms, they were tiny with either a single ring to cook on or a kettle

Back in the days of bedsits work canteens were the norm.
People would eat a subsidised hot meal for lunch and have a cold supper in their bedsit.
Tea and biscuits at 11am and 3pm was the norm in those days hence a tea lady.
My DF boiled potatoes in his kettle !

HMOs are single rooms singly rented,houseshares are usually a group thing

Fair enough. But the BBC still select who to include and who to exclude in the final piece.

And they excluded the voice of the ordinary female pensioner in favour of a transwoman forces veteran/retired social worker who oddly, and without explanation, appears to have almost no pension after two careers employed by the state.

In 1995 I earned the equivalent of £18,000 a year. Just me on my own with no entitlement to anything. I lived in a room in a shared house as there was no way I could have afford even a bedsit then.

People moving out of home and having their own place straight away was only true for a couple of generations for working class people.

People moving out of home and having their own place straight away was only true for a couple of generations for working class people.

Exactly - my mum moved straight from home to married in a house with my dad. My dad moved from home, to lodging situations (ie houseshares - but from his tales, normally with an eccentric female landlady who had draconian rules) to the house - she was early 20s, he was late 20s by the time they had the house - this was 50 years ago.

20 years ago, I moved from home, to house-shares, to a flat shared with a boyfriend (which took up half my wage in rent only) in my early 20s.

There's absolutely nothing weird about an apprentice (albeit an older one) not being able to afford his own flat, but being able to live in a flatshare if he scrimps. This has been the case forever.

Someone earning ‘double’ what you earnt 20 years ago is actually earning only slightly more than you did when adjusted for CPI. Probably less than you did when adjusted for CPIH but the data doesn’t go back far enough for that.

My parents and their friends definitely had space for chairs in their bedsits. I reckon most people would love a subsidised canteen if it was offered nowadays. But people would probably criticise them for using that like they do for anything that isn’t packing your own sandwich made of smartprice beans.

I just remember the subsidised canteen when I started working.
It was so cheap!
Way cheaper than cooking for yourself,plus free tea and biscuits twice a day
People barely get breaks now,employment is so pressured

Council housing should have never been sold off.
Affordable housing for lower earner's and still able to pay full rent without the need of benefit top up unlike private rent sector.

But then the lower middle classes wouldn't be able to achieve social mobility through becoming slumlords. They wouldn't be able to afford a run down second property to get them started.

Someone earning ‘double’ what you earnt 20 years ago is actually earning only slightly more than you did when adjusted for CPI. Probably less than you did when adjusted for CPIH but the data doesn’t go back far enough for that.

Exactly - everything's gone up, so the double salary just keeps you in the same place as me - this is what I mean!

My rent on that flat 20 years ago was 600/month (and again, it was an unfurnished, unmaintained 1st floor one bed flat on the outskirts of a town) - half my salary at the time. Right now, in the same place, a 1 bed flat the same is a grand (I see one just below and one just above) - so rent is proportionally lower in comparison

According to google, an entry level software engineer earns 39k. I got a good salary at the time - it was by far the highest offer I got, so I've made the figures easy by bumping that up to 40k

£40k after tax is £32,321. On a salary of £40k, in 2024/25 you'll take home £32,321, which is 81% of your salary. Thats £2,693 per month, or £622 per week. That's £5,486 of Income Tax and £2,193 of National Insurance Contributions (NICs).15 Sept 2024

So a starting software engineer like me, can rent a comparable flat, for a lower proportion of their salary - yes, all bills are higher, but their rent is lower in comparison.

I know this is not the position of the apprentice, but again, on an apprentice salary, you can't expect to live alone. I could only afford to live in a flat, with a graduate job because I had a boyfriend, and I lived a 30min commute on a moped away from my job. We couldn't afford to live any closer.

Yes. Rent is high, I agree, it's crazy - but to suggest that his position is something new is just wrong. Apprentices have always lodged.

Salary. Typical graduate software engineer salaries start from around £28,000 to £35,000 a year. Software engineers with a few years' experience can usually earn between £40,000 and £60,000. At senior or management level, you can expect to earn up to £70,000 a year, with some lead software engineers earning more.

https://www.prospects.ac.uk › soft...
Software engineer job profile | Prospects.ac.uk

uk.indeed.com/career/entry-level-software-engineer/salaries/England]] uk.indeed.com/career/entry-level-software-engineer/salaries/England]]

And this link says 39k - so that's going to depend on your source.

28k is 1950/month takehome - so there you go - with a grand's rent exactly the same position as me 20 years ago.

Yes but when you look at said jobs, they actually say something like this:

Technical competence:

• Programming software languages required: C, C#
• Additional programming software languages preferred: SQL, BASIC, JavaScript and other languages
• Knowledge of operating systems, networking, basic hardware for automation industry
• Windows, Windows Server, Android, IOT, Internet
• At least two years of applicable development experience required

Job Type: Full-time, Permanent Salary: £35,000.00-£45,000.00 per year

So to get the job for 35k, you need two years of applicable experience. You are not entry level. You're at least two years into your career.

This is an actual entry level job. Posted a year ago.
https://uk.indeed.com/viewjob?from=appsharedroid&jk=f235780911f71350

Salary will be based on experience. They give no lower limit.

So take the 28k example - same ratios I had.