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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

25 when did it become not an adult?

292 replies

Samcro · 08/07/2015 23:26

so under 25 you don't get the new wage.
surely 25 is and adult. someone who has left education and home, hopefully been working a few years so why?
why is say (for example) a 23 yr old thought to be worth less?

OP posts:
SurlyCue · 09/07/2015 11:56

As an under 25 year old you lack experience.

Maybe you lacked experience. I didnt. I had 9 years full time experience of working in the same role with increasing responsibilities by the time i was 25. I also had two children and my own home since i was 19. I had loads of experience across a broad range of skills.

merrymouse · 09/07/2015 11:56

I think the idea is that most people shouldn't be in minimum wage jobs or are able to move out of minimum wage jobs.

Theoretically people with experience and skills should be earning more than nmw. Whether that works in reality depends on the economy and job market.

SurlyCue · 09/07/2015 12:04

I think along with encouraging my DCs to go for well paying jobs and perfecting their skills im also going to invest in teaching them how to negotiate for themselves. This minimum wage is a minimum they dont have to accept it. I'm going to enourage them to decide on their own value rather than accept what someone else decides it is.

OneFlewOverTheDodosNest · 09/07/2015 12:11

Basically, you live within your means. Like we all do.

I don't think £540 a month really gives you any means to live within. Once you've taken your hypothetical rent of £300 a month including bills out (and personally, I'd love to know where the hell you can live for £300 a month that doesn't include any creepy "female applicants only with extras expected" clauses) that's £240 or just under £60 a week, but let's round it up.

For us, local bus travel is £22 a week (£38 left) food is £30 a week if you don't want to end up malnourished (£8 left) and a load at the launderette is a fiver - giving you a magnificent £3 left a week to go in savings. That's going to be a fantastic safety net for when your landlord tells you to move out...

SurlyCue · 09/07/2015 12:16

Basically, you live within your means. Like we all do.

On £60 a week, for many that means going without essentials.

knittingdad · 09/07/2015 12:19

I don't agree with the 25-year minimum threshold, but to play devil's advocate it is worth noting that unemployment is considerably higher among 18-24 year olds, so the intention might have been to encourage employers to take advantage of young people give young people a chance.

Then, by the time people are 25, they will be more likely to have worked, to have experience and to have a track record so that they are able to get a job that pays more.

So, while it's not ideal, I think it's important to chalk this up as a big victory for people who have been campaigning for the living wage. Remembering that the Tories opposed the minimum wage in the first place and I'm certain that they wouldn't have done this if it hadn't been for the living wage campaigns. Well done to the campaigners, and I hope that they are successful in pressuring the Tories to make it better in the future.

kbbeanie · 09/07/2015 12:24

Bit of a joke really. It wont affect me because i will be 25 at beginning of 2016.
However I am 24 now and have a 3 year old. I have worked since i was 16 part time while i was at school. When i left school at 18. I worked a full time job and a part time job (some weeks i was working 60-70 hours !) up until i went on maternity leave when i had just turned 21. I then returned to part time work when my ds was just 8 weeks old and i still do that now !
I live with DS dad who also works 2 jobs and we have household bills and a family to support...so why should we be treated any differently from someone who is older and has a family whenever we are doing equally if not more work ?

MrsGideon · 09/07/2015 12:27

001

I can only assume you live in the northern two thirds of the country? Because £300 for rent anywhere south of about Birmingham is, frankly, laughable.

I rent a TINY flat in south London with a flatmate (quite far south, so I'm not even near the city centre) and my rent is £675 including bills. So if I were that hypothetical 16 year old, my wages wouldn't even cover my rent!

Young people aren't eligible for housing benefit anymore, so if they're on £3.87 an hour, they're really not going to be able to afford much at all.

MrsGideon · 09/07/2015 12:32

In fact, the last time I paid as low as £300 in rent, was when I was living in the most grotty, disgusting student accommodation in my first year of uni in Leeds!

kbbeanie · 09/07/2015 12:34

Im over in N.I and my rent is only 350 a month for a large 3 bed semi house. So we are lucky that way that we have cheap rent. How will other people manage who dont have rent like that....i can only imagine that in a lot of places the rent is going to be at least triple that for a house of the same size !

MrsGideon · 09/07/2015 12:37

God a 3 bed house in London would be about £2500 per month if not more!

kbbeanie · 09/07/2015 12:40

Bloody Hell !!!! Granted i dont live in Belfast where it is a little more expensive but not ridiculous prices either ! And im not far from the city either...im a lot closer to it than most of london are to the centre im sure ! a 10-15 min drive away !

purits · 09/07/2015 12:43

the last time I paid as low as £300 in rent, was when I was living in the most grotty, disgusting student accommodation in my first year of uni in Leeds!

Yeah. We've all been there, paying rent for damp, infested hovels. I don't know why Gen Y seem to think that they are the first generation to be young and broke. And that all over-50s were born with a silver spoon in their mouth.

MrsGideon · 09/07/2015 12:47

I'm certainly not complaining that I had to live in a horrible flat - I had some great memories there.

You clearly completely missed my point - I paid that as a student in LEEDS. Rent is extremely unlikely to ever be that low in London or any of the surrounding counties.

MrsGideon · 09/07/2015 12:47

especially with the housing bubble the way it is at the moment!

MrsGideon · 09/07/2015 12:50

AND, you might be interested to know that my current flat is somewhat damp and falling apart. So I'm not paying £675 to live in the lap of luxury. That's just a pretty standard amount to pay for a room (including bills) in London

SouthernComforts · 09/07/2015 12:51

I'm 23, have a school aged dc and work more than full time. Why on earth should I get paid less than a colleague in exactly the same position 2 years older?

I am already going to have to leave my second job, after the 20% tax and the cut in tax credits it just isn't worth it anymore.

Way to encourage the 'young' to work more Hmm

NKfell · 09/07/2015 12:51

I was going to say what knittingdad said. Not that I agree but I think it will be to try and make employing younger people attractive.

Saying that, when I was 25 I was a working single Mum of 2 kids so it would have been less than ideal for me.

Where I live in Cumbria rented houses never come up and rented 2 bed flats are about £600pcm (when they come up). Our local housing trust always go on about how wages paid are completely out of line with cost of accommodation and that's across the board not just under 25s.

wafflyversatile · 09/07/2015 12:52

Then, by the time people are 25, they will be more likely to have worked, to have experience and to have a track record so that they are able to get a job that pays more.

Or be replaced by a 22 year old.

ReallyTired · 09/07/2015 13:08

This link suggests that young adults should be allowed to remain in foster care until 25 years old.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33438003

Surely a cheaper form of housing could be provided for a care leaver. Most adults leave home before 25.

puffinrock · 09/07/2015 13:13

I live in the South and my place costs £350 a month. The South is a big area and it is cheaper where I am. (We are further South than London).

ItsNotAsPerfectAsItSeems · 09/07/2015 13:18

I don't agree with it but it's a start. Plus everyone on here is talking as if all 24yr olds will earn less than 25yr olds doing the same job. In reality it won't be like that across the board. It will mainly affect those working in unskilled NMW jobs. And of course the 24 yr old is unlikely to have less outgoings than the 25yr old but whilst it's far from ideal, at least it's a start. Some companies won't even be affected. The man from Kettle Foods was saying it wouldn't affect them as they had already signed up to the living wage campaign and pay £7.50 an hour minimum.

MrsGideon · 09/07/2015 13:19

Ok, fair enough. But there are large areas of the country where the housing bubble makes renting extortionately expensive

LapsedTwentysomething · 09/07/2015 13:21

How can they leave home? By going into a flat/house share???

Why not? What's wrong with a flat share?

Would you choose to live in a house share? I wouldn't have after uni. Why would I want to live with other, unrelated adults? I wanted and still want my own space.

Surely the young are doing more work in manual NMW jobs than their older counterparts. Why should they in future support their elders as pensioners having covered for them as under 25s?

And the inexperience argument makes no sense. By that logic, anyone switching careers either through necessity or choice should be paid at the under 25 rate.

00100001 · 09/07/2015 13:25

OK, let's say there's an average of £100 a week for rent inclusive of bills? Earning for 35 hours at £3.87 means weekly take home pay is £135.40, leaving around £35 a week to buy food, clean your clothes, go out and save etc? It's not impossible for the single 16 year old to live off £35 a week really. Not easy. No. But it is still doable.