To think plenty of people live on a lot less than £297 a week?

[Braveanddifferent]

It's still over £15k a year.

One could live on it and not starve, but one would not be living well or extravagantly at all.
Nor even comfortably.

I couldn't live on it. That's less than a weeks full time nursery fees around here.

I couldn't live on it. But some people probably can.

I am a single pensioner and live on about £12k net per year.
I have no mortgage/rent but have to pay :
council tax - nearly £2k a year
utilities (the £200 pa helps a very little bit)
insurances
food
running a car
TV licence
other costs like replacing white goods, perhaps a weekend away
and I pay tax on this income.
As others have said it depends on your circumstances (most families on that income would get a lot of state support in the form of tax credits/HB etc) and it is a fact that a single person could live on £15k if housing costs and council tax were not so high (which is also the reason why housing benefit and to a lesser extent council tax benefit have so massively increased over the last 10 years).

Yes but anyone living purely on that amount would have 70% of nursery fees paid for them .

To be fair in the interview I saw, John McDonnell made it clear he was talking about London and he quoted average rents too and the cost of trying to buy.

Ollie- have you checked to see if you could get any pension credit?

Half the country earns less than 16k

No. Average income is around £25k. So half the country earns less than £25k, not £16k.

The cleaner was earning £297 working full time in Barts hospital in central London. That's a pitiful wage when you look at housing costs in London.

Someone earning that wage in London would most likely get help with rent from housing benefit wouldn't they? I guess there is the benefit cap to consider now though.

Single people on less than £13k can claim working tax credits as long as you work 30 hours a week.

Yes so someone single on £15k is not necessarily entitled to anything.And before working tax credits, single people earning minimum wage usually got nothing.

Do you live on £297 pm? If so let us know how far that wage lasts.

Titty

That's not how averages work.

For example in my country
Piglet John £10 week
Chancellor Hammond £50,000 week
Rat 1 £10 week
Stoat £5 week
Toad £20 week
Pooh £1 week
Badger £12 week
Weasel 1 £6 week
Dormouse £2 week

Arithmetic mean weekly earnings (£50,066 divided by 10) £6,006.60

Half the country does not earn £6k/week

Half the country earns less than £10 week

15k is not much at all.

My friends DD works part time at M&S and gets about 6-7k a year. She works 16 hours.

15k for an adult is very low, surely

I'm not rich by any means and struggling to get by right now but my DH and I earn more than that. We'd not live off that and keep our house.

Why do you ask?

Even if you can it doesn't mean it should be a level the government aspires to.

The only overpaid public sector workers are MPs, who as mentioned got a pay raise as recommended when all other public sector workers didn't.

disregard that if the figure is based on median earnings, though I don't recognise the figure

This is what Hammond gets

www.independent.co.uk/voices/philip-hammond-public-sector-pay-sexism-overpaid-in-country-a7844111.html

Median household income is around £26k. It would be far more if the mean was used as income is massively skewed.

"Marr asked if he did make the remark about women and train driving. “No, I didn’t,” said he who never discusses what was or wasn’t said at a private meeting. Aha, went on Marr, but did May make the quip about removing your shovel? “Again, I don’t comment on what’s said in private meetings.”

If you talked like that in the GP’s consulting room, directly contradicting yourself in apparent ignorance of what you said four seconds ago, the doctor would ask you these three questions: 1) “What is your date of birth?”, 2) “What month are we in?”, and 3) “Can you tell me who the Prime Minister is?”.

Ha ha!

The cleaner was earning £297 working full time in Barts hospital in central London. That's a pitiful wage when you look at housing costs in London.

If adequate cleaning staff can be obtained at that price then it isn't to low. What it enables people to afford is neither here nor there.

There are lots of people in the job market who aren't the only contributing adult in their household, and who therefore can afford to work for less than the minimum cost of running a household.

Well of course they do. But not in the middle of London and that's a pitiful full time wage.

My Ex works full time up north and comes out with more than that.

Echoing piglet

What is grotesque is the next number that should shock everyone. The average pay of the next 90%, (by stripping out all earnings of the top 10%, including the 1% and 0.1% groups) leaves an annual income of just £12,969. Yes, you read that right. Stripping out the top 10% of average pay, leaves just £12,969 average pay for the remaining 90% of the population.

Someone earning that wage in London would most likely get help with rent from housing benefit wouldn't they?

No. In the short time my Dsis was a single parent she was offered a few quid a week as a HB topup. She was working part time, and understandably told them she wasn't going to take it.