to wonder how employees get away with paying their staff under £15k?

[KenAdams]

I've just been looking at jobs and I'm shocked at how many pay under £15k!

Surely that's not enough to buy a house in most areas of the country or afford rent on an average family house as well as food, bills, nursery fees etc?

I live in a relatively cheap area and full time nursery fees alone are around £800. How can people be expected to afford that on low wages? It's no wonder that some people really are better off on benefits, which is really sad.

I don't know how low your income has to be to get help from the government but surely there needs to be a big rise in minimum wage in order to meet living costs now?

[SayCoolNowSayWhip]

Ghostship, there's no way we could afford to live on £15K. Good for you that you can. With bills, mortgage, nursery fees etc we pay out all of DH's and my wages, and student loans that I get for doing my degree (which again I will have to pay back).

[GhostShip]

twofaced exactly, people just live within their means. I don't have much, but I wouldnt consider myself poor. I have food, a roof over my head, I'm happy, working, studying, volunteering :o
I'm not rich in monetary terms but in everything else I feel I am.

But anyone earning 15k can do it. You get a smaller place, in a cheaper area. You have cheaper meals, get cheap clothes.

[dreamingofsun]

is it full-time? if so they are obviously hoping to get someone on the cheap and expecting them to stay only for a short time whilst they get their CV together

[GhostShip]

Saycool - you wouldn't be able to now because you've acquired a mortgage, but if it happened you would have to. You'd have to find a way to keep your costs down. It wouldn't be nice, but it could be done. You'd do it for the sake of your family, you can't just cease to exist can you? We all live within our means, you have yours now and I have mine. If our circumstances were to change we'd have to adapt. I don't believe in 'can't', because we have to.

It would be nice if we all got that little bit more, but it wouldn't work because as minimum wage rises, other costs rise too.

[GhostShip]

And I love your username, I'm thinking of Stewie right now :o

[TwoFacedCows]

people now a days consider 'luxury' items, to be essential.

[TwoFacedCows]

although i do realise that people wil them struggle to 'down size' if taking a pay cut/ loosing job etc.

We would be buggered!

[GhostShip]

I actually agree with that twofaced.

Things like sky tv, phone lines, internet. People plead poverty yet still afford these things. You don't know true skint if you think that is!

[GhostShip]

I'd rather be like I am now, than be someone who was comfortably well off, but then lost their job or had financial difficulty and had to downsize. Because I've never had extravagant things, I don't miss them. But I can imagine it being so so hard for someone to get rid of all they have and know, to go to something smaller which for them might be awful but for some would be great.

[SayCoolNowSayWhip]

I'm glad someone knows what it means!

I know what you mean, we'd HAVE to survive, but it seems like we're struggling so much now, we'd never be able to cope living on any less.

TBH it's nothing really to do with what employers pay - mine is really good considering I'm part time. DH's is another story.... BUT it's a steady job that he's been in 6 years and they're very flexible with things like time off to help irrational pregnant wives etc. If he got a better job, we might have more money BUT the quid pro quo would be that we'd see him less and he'd be more stressed and tired etc.

I haven't really answered anything, just rambled. But I'm 23 weeks pg and hormonal so I'll sit on you if you argue with me.

[TwoFacedCows]

excatly! having cars, tv, phones, games consols (sp?). people moan about not having any money, but then have plenty for fags!! as an ex smoker i knew when i was truely skint, because i couldnt buy ciggies!

[GhostShip]

Haha I'm just rambling too, please don't sit on me otherwise I might be sick! Got this awful bug that everyone seems to be getting...

[SayCoolNowSayWhip]

I think it's also to do with the area you're in as well. I'm in the South, and wages (and living costs!) seem to be higher than in the North. There aren't many fulltime jobs going that would pay under £15K.

[SayCoolNowSayWhip]

Look, I NEED my 50 inch plasma screen and my Sky TV with all 80 million channels, k?

[TwoFacedCows]

It would be VERY hard for us to downsize, obviously if we had to then we would. But it would feel like a really hardship.

We are lucky to be able to buy without thinking, and spend money on what we want and be very frivoulous with our money.

I find it hard enough having to remember to carefully add up in a shop if i have forgotten my card and just have a tenner for example! So i really take my hat off to people who manage on that wage, and are happy!

[TwoFacedCows]

smoking while pregger!!!

[bondigidum]

I can't talk about childcare because I don't use it, I do know its uber pricey but aren't there childcare vouchers?

Anyway, rent wise it depends where you live. Where I live up North average rent for 3 bed house is £550. Most pay in the region of £400-£550 per month which is easily done on £15k (or less) per year. Also council tax is less up here (£80-£110 per month). Does food cost more down south? I do recall paying 70p for a mars bar down there which was 50p up north at the time anyway. So what i'm saying is whilst, say, 12k isn't going to get you far down south (probably wouldnt even cover rent) up North that is enough (most families have top ups of tax creds and child benefit as well). We could get by on 15k easily with 3 DC.

[samandi]

People are desperate, they can pay what they want.

[samandi]

Oblomov - I've seen plenty of technical graduate jobs advertised recently for around £13000. The same jobs that a few years ago would've been £18000.

[bondigidum]

And yes I second what people say about luxury items. We don't drive for a few reasons- one being we can't afford to, but soo many people who apparently have no money drive. Even if its a cheap car they're not cheap to run what with petrol, insurance, tax, m.o.t and repairs even if the car itself was only £500.

Sky/virgin as well. A lot of people will say they're skint whilst watching sky sports.. And smoking/drinking too, with games consoles and plasma TVs.

Controversially maybe I don't believe anyone in the UK can say they are in true poverty. Poverty to me is starving, dehydrated, no home etc. In this country we have benefits so people don't end up like that, we also have free healthcare and education. This country helps people out a lot, we are very fortunate.

[Purplemonster]

I live in the South West and frankly, you're lucky to find a job paying that in my area. I work full time and only just earn that and I work for one of the highest paying employers in the area. In tourist regions where people are struggling to even find poorly paid seasonal work, £15k is considered a 'good' job / decent wage....even though you can't really live on it given that we've got some of the highest house prices, water rates etc in the country. It does annoy me but then we live in a beautiful part of the country despite the poverty and deprivation around here and walk our dogs on the beach at the weekends so you win some you lose some I suppose.

[FredFredGeorge]

KenAdams but that job is in reality a continuation of your training - someone who at 21 has the skills to do that, should, if they're any good, have the experience added to the skills to do a 400+ a day contract in 10 years time. It is an entry level position in a profession, it's not a lifetime wage, so with that as your example YABVU.

The real situation though is that you're comparing a job, with the costs of buying a house, nursery etc. And yes there will be lots of jobs which do not fund that lifestyle, however there are also lots of single people with no nursery costs who share a house with friends or live with parents who'll have disposable income on that wage.

Whilst the arguments against a minimum wage are often over done, it is a regressive tax on the poor really - most of the employers of minimum wage people are providing universal services (supermarkets etc.) and pushing up the price of their goods by a higher minimum wage impacts the poorest the most (because a higher proportion of their income goes on the goods). So you cannot have a minimum wage that is too high without harming groups you don't really want to harm.

[Sparrowp]

Some people on the minimum wage expect bloody luxuries like food and water. Didn't have that in my day. We all lived on fresh air and sunshine, and it didn't do us any harm.

They should be grateful for any job, its not really a job anyway its training, shouldn't have to pay them anything at all really. We're doing people a favour paying as high as the minimum wage. Some people expect a roof over their head but I've slept in a tent before, I don't see why they can't all do that if they expect some disposable income.

[Sparrowp]

;)

[Sparrowp]

Its only temporary for everyone to earn below a living wage. In 60 years time they'll have the "experience" and "skills" to be earning millions per minute.