To ask what mumsnetters think is a low income

[Pimmsoclocknow]

Totally inspired by another thread, but what do you think is a low income. - for a individual and for a family of four

Hard to generalise. Some of us would not get out of bed for less than £1k a day but that does not mean we don't appreciate how low some people's incomes can be.

Charles Dickens said it was having less money coming than going out and I think that's pretty sound.

GReengrow
There is a huge difference between Low income for what you do
and Low Income full stop

I'd say anything less than £40,000 (for one earner) or a bit less for two (accounting for 2x £10,000 tax thresholds) for a family of four would feel barely adequate to afford a reasonable lifestyle including housing costs. There are no in-work benefits at that sort of pay and take-home pay at £40,000 is around £2100/month assuming you pay into a workplace pension scheme.

South east one child lone parent benefits only......not fun!!!! Thank god that time has passed.

Duchess how much are you assuming that someone is paying into a pension?! 40,000 net per month is much closer to £2500.

assuming you pay into a workplace pension scheme.
Which is NOT the case for tens of thousands of employees, let alone the self employed and those whose employers find ways to exclude them from schemes

Any amount of money where you are struggling to put food on the table.

a low income is when you have £30 a week left after paying bills and you have out of that £5 a week for electric, £5 a week for gas and £20 a week to feed yourself, no buses walk to and from work,

All this has proved is that we need a bit more detail in the question?

This might be helpful though sections of it require a good understanding of statistics and the use of a calculator
www.poverty.org.uk/summary/income%20intro.shtml

Low Income is actually defined as Living in Poverty, whereas, I think many of us interpret it as Living with a basic level of comfort which is what this link gives numbers about.

www.jrf.org.uk/publications/mis-2012
■A single person in the UK needs to earn at least 16,400 a year before tax in 2012, to afford a minimum acceptable standard of living.
■Two parents need to earn at least 18,400 each to support themselves and two children.

In the SE, and NOT in Greater London I'd say 25k for a single person and 50k for a family of 4. In Greater London, I'd say 30k and 60k probably and most people on that salary would not feel terribly well off.
I'm sure that many people sadly survive on incomes below that and that council housing/benefits may ease their position somehow but I've tried to ignore the welfare state in my numbers as I honestly don't know the value of tax credits etc.

And yes, I do understand how lucky that makes me. MN reminds me of my good fortune every day.

liveable wage for a single person is around £15k reality is working 15 hours a week with housing benefit (only benefit available) total earnings £9380 shortfall £5k

The authoritative wealth gap indicators use disposable income after housing costs. It's all worked out properly according to locale, family size, and so on, taking benefits into account. I did a massive post on it a few months ago but don't think I've kept the data. Maybe one of my fellow stats bores could help?

We have been so cushioned from severe wealth disparity, here in Western Europe, that people fail to grasp what this rapidly-growing chasm really means: fragmented society; strangled economy; rampant crime; increased health hazards; inflexibility.

Sorry, this should have been on the other thread but it's relevant here, too.

I live in the Midlands so I think under £19,000 for an individual and under £24,000 for a family would be classed as a low wage.

I used to go out with someone earning £19,000 a year and it was heartbreaking watching him try to make ends meet and keep up appearances.

I think these figures tie in roughly with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation figures on poverty too.

As a member of cipd, I know from surveys Ive seen that average wages are (men) £33,000 (women) £28,000.

have I killed the thread?

Did the OP ever come back?

:-)
I think there were too many of us posting links to cold hard numbers

PS
Average is Mean, rather than median.
The "average" income is more than 63% of the population
Median is under £20k nationally