Why are wages so fucking bad in 2017? They're the same as the 80's/ 90's?

[BaydreamDeliever]

My mum moved to London in the 80's and worked for a high end shop. I've just had a look at the position they are advertising for at the moment, and it's a touch above min wage. My mum was able to afford to live on her wage back then, even though it wasn't big bucks, there is no way I could live on what they are offering today.

Wages are basically the same as years ago if you are in a lot of jobs. And the culture of 'internships' has further fucked everything. I see loads of these paying nothing or paying maybe £50 a day, demanding quite specific software skills. Entry level doesn't seem to mean entry level anymore.

I get that there always must be winners and losers in society as it's structured now, but seriously how can things churn on with workers being paid such shit money? If they do away with tax credits or housing benefit - what then? What will happen? I don't get it and I'm scared thinking of it. I'm educated, have a bit of experience in certain fields but not in any that pay reasonably. There must be millions like me in that same boat.

Amazingly whilst people are managing to on this thread play immigration the top 10% and have had a staggering rise
in wealth. This has been achieved by getting the media and certain political parties to scapegoat immigrants, and those on benefits.

Very clever trick. 'Look! look over there at those scrounging immigrants. Don't look at us making our millions, it's all their fault'.

People really have fallen for it hook, line and sinker.

Completely agree with you Nowt.

I've worked for two companies in the last few years who have awarded full bonus to the top tier of staff while the rest of the workers got no bonus or salary increase. Excuse both times was that the company hadn't had a good year.

I was talking recently to someone who manages a haulage firm. He said that lorry drivers' wages have fallen so much they they earn much less in absolute terms than they did in the 80s -- ie. even before adjusting for inflation. He said it was down to increased competition from Eastern European drivers willing to work for much less.

We need a new union movement.
Isn't it amazing really how far they have fallen. Some failures have been overstated and mocked. Unions are the preserve of the public servants in many cases. Even though a union victory for, say, teachers would help stem the tide of the race to the bottom, 'ordinary hardworking families' resent paying tax for the benefit of those who are already better off by any degree.
In a globalised world the order us shifting. We are no longer the aristocrats of the village. We are in the transitional phase where nationality is less important than it used to be when it comes to resource sharing. The western middle class is shrinking but the global middle class is growing. The upper classes are, and always will be owners so they are pretty much ok. The lower classes are seeing much more churn. From a global perspective there is a lot more equalisatioj.

House prices are dependent on supply - we need more houses!

Sorry for spelling.

Point remains. 20 yrs ago it was all talk about the global village. Well villages also have a class structure. It is coming apparent now that many of us will become the serfs, rather than have the serfs nicely out of sight in Chinese sweatshops or Congolese mines. Obviously not there yet but that is the trajectory, imo.

I had no experience and anyone could walk into a admin job for over £18K 20 years ago. I really think tax credits are enabling employers to pay so much less now. Housing also is a massive issue. Some areas you need to get a mortgage for 16 x average salary.

We need less people. Also we need to think about pensions. It's easy to say oh big corps only care about shareholders. But we, and our parents are the shareholders - if we expect a pension, it's us that are the heartless top hat wearing exploiters

Why on earth do people keep rewriting history over tax credits when the low wage jobs were there beforehand.

My wages have barely increased by £2K in the last 8/9 years. My pension and NI have gone up though as has inflation so basically I'm even poorer.

Technology has also allowed easy and cheap offshoring of jobs to lower paid countries.

It hasn't happened because workers are prepared to accept lower wages - they're not the ones with the power.

^^this 100%

The wages and bonuses of company directors have gone up, and continue to go up significantly. You can't blame immigrants for doing what they can for their families. You can blame company executives for doing everything in their power to keep wages low, dodge tax and reward themselves handsomely for it.

How exactly did Blair and brown 'open the floodgates'. We're they solely responsible for Eastern European countries entering the eu and gaining free movement?

summer - I earn £52.50 a day working 9.30-5, it costs me £48 a day to put my son in nursery so I'm able to go to work.

What on earth do you do??

*were not we're

25 years ago I did a job in a factory earning £2.30 an hour - I was working the summer holidays while at Uni, I was 20. Other workers were doing it as their 'job'. I'm pretty sure because of minimum wage legislation, that is not allowed now. Am I wrong?

Btw - I agree that wages should be higher, and that zero hours contracts shouldn't exist - but we have an ageing population. We need young wage earners and tax payers, hence immigration. Immigration helps the economy and pays our older people's pensions now. Otherwise we're sitting on a babyboomer's timebomb.

Inflation has been pretty low for the past 20 years. This calculator is interesting, to find out the effect inflation has had on buying power.

It's called capitalism. It works very very well for the tiny minority at the top who are pocketing the money and power. Not so well for the rest of us.

The Plague in the 14th century released thousands of serfs from labour bondage - there were so few left they could say Fuck Off to the Lord who had relied on their servitude. They could demand better terms and if they were not forthcoming they took their labour elsewhere.

It's the basic law of supply and demand - too many labourers equals low wages.

The world has too many people chasing g a decreasing number of jobs.

HelenaDove it's not rewriting history to say that tax credits perpetuate low wages at the bottom end of the pay scale. Ok, they didn't cause low wages (WTC and CTC were only introduced in 2003) but they allow employers to keep wages low, knowing that their employees can claim extra money.

Found the quote I was thinking of now.

'CAPITALISM
Is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of motives, will somehow work for the benefit of all.'

Attributed to Kohn Maynard Keynes

Yeah - I agree crisp. Watch Noam Chomsky's videos on YT for further (depressing) info.

There's a statistic he quotes - which I can't remember - but basically the boss used to earn about 13 times the amount of the average employee - now he earns 300 times the average employee. This is from memory - but it's something like that - and Noam has a "fair society" algorithm for the amount a boss should earn compared to his employees.

Bada it's been a convenient scapegoat to hang it on Blair. He had very little room to manoeuvre in reality.

I doubt most bosses would be on 300 times their employees salaries. If their workers were on £15K, that would put the boss on £4.5 million. I don't think this is true for most bosses and employees. Even 13 times a salary would put the boss on almost £200K. Bit more realistic, but still high.

But are you talking about the 9 to 5 office boss?

Or the owner of the company?

I doubt most bosses would be on 300 times their employees salaries. If their workers were on £15K, that would put the boss on £4.5 million. I don't think this is true for most bosses and employees. Even 13 times a salary would put the boss on almost £200K. Bit more realistic, but still high.

But are you talking about the 9 to 5 office boss?

Or the owner of the company?.

Agree that tax credits probably didn't help, as it gave the employers an excuse to keep wages low. And they have never gone up. Many people have not had a wage increase in over a decade.

I was on £19K 25 years ago, and know some people who aren't on that now! in addition, I could walk from one job into another 25 years ago. In 1991, I applied for 7 jobs, got 6 interviews, and got offered 5 of the jobs.

One employer offered me 5% more salary when I took the job with another employer. (I took my first choice, as it was 20 minutes walk from my house, and the other was 2 hours travel a day on public transport.) In 1993, my wage went up 10%..

As I said, I was on £19K as a P.A. in the south in the very early 1990's. My first house was £33K. (in the mid 1990's.) I know several people now who are on less than £19K and the same house is valued at £160K. They've got no chance.

House prices have virtually tripled, (excluding London where they have gone up even more!) and wages are probably about a THIRD of what they should be. Do the math; no wonder most people can afford fuck-all, people are going to food banks, many people need help from tax credits, most people have no savings, most people can't afford to get on the property ladder, and many people are in debt.

Much of society is poorly paid and disillusioned; no wonder the Brexit vote won. And I agree we need a return of unions.

Someone said (on page 1,) that it's like this 'because we allow it.' How the heck are we meant to stop it?!

Something went horribly wrong, and it was waaaay before Brexit, and even before the 2008 crash.

Society is fucked. And it's not just in the UK either. Taking inflation into account; wages should be around £20 an hour now (to be the same as they were in the late 1970's, the 1980's, and the early 1990's.) And a house that cost £33K in 1993 should cost around £58K now, yet it costs anything from £145 to £160K for the same house.

As I said, it's not hard to see why society is fucked, many people struggle furiously with finances, few people can get on the property ladder, and few people have savings.

I feel for Millennials I genuinely do. The majority of them will never buy a property, especially as quite a few of them have parents who are from the disillusioned and unfortunate 'Generation X,' who struggle to make ends meet, and can't help their 1990's born children, as they barely have enough money to look after themselves.