To wonder what a ‘good wage’ is?

[PaperdollCartoon]

Not really an AIBU but something I’ve been pondering on, and posting here for traffic and opinions.

I often see people mentioning that someone earns ‘a good wage’ or indeed a high wage, but what that means in practice is clearly dependent on many factors, not least the area someone lives in but also their dependents.

I work in an industry where I talk to people on very high wages all the time about their jobs, which I think skews my view of what’s normal. I was involved in a discussion in another forum recently where it was mentioned the average salary at the moment is £27,000. Of course this is a mean average, skewed by a few very high salaries, and most people are below that. But many people were commenting that they didn’t know anyone who earned that much and had never earned anywhere near that themselves.

I’ve also been fascinated by this calculator from the Institute of Fiscal Studies that shows where households fall in the stratification of the country www.ifs.org.uk/wheredoyoufitin/
I think a lot of people would be surprised by it. When DP and I each earned the average salary (no kids) we were still in the top 25/30% ish of households which seems mad, and we live in an expensive area.

I’m wondering - what do you think a ‘good wage’ is, and at one point does something become a high wage?

*"Half of the country earns less than £19,000"

What's the source for this? Full time salary or part time? Either way I don't believe it.*

Why don't you believe it?

What about all the shop assistants, assistant managers, factory workers, cleaners, agency workers,, support staff, office staff, teaching assistants, lab assistants, photographers, vet assistants, bench joiners, catering staff, care assistants, taxi drivers, secretaries, receptionists, order pickers etc etc etc. Where I live nearly all of them are earning 16k or less and millions of them don't claim any benefits. Some people really do live in a bubble.

SW London, £75k is good, above £100 is high in my opinion.

We apparently are in the top 3% but with a monthly 2.5k for mortgage (for 70sq m2 for 4 people) and 3k for childcare it really doesn't feel like it!
No car, 1-2 holidays a year to see our families in Europe (no costs other than train or plane), no expensive hobbies or designer clothes, second hand for about half of DC's toys and clothes. I just don't know what we are doing wrong.
We eat good food, that is the one luxury I can see we have.

Half of all tax payers earn less than £19,000. Shit loads of other people don't earn enough to pay tax. The stats are just not out there. Probably 70% of people earn less than £19,000. That is just a guesstimate.

*To be honest, I consider a good wage to be any wage that means you can:

Pay your bills on payday
Afford the food shopping
Still have money left for extras, like a couple of nights out/meals out/activity days and whatnot - say £200 a month*

I manage to do that on 13k. I also manage to go abroad on holiday most years.

help - house prices in many parts of London have doubled in the last ten years. So if you bought a house for just over £1 million in say 2006, it will now be worth £3 million, so it's fairly easy to take a mortgage at a low interest rate and upgrade to a larger house for say, £5 million (except the stamp duty is over 500k and this stops a lot if people moving).

1ndig0 Oh I know but that’s still a 2m mortgage & as you say 500k stamp duty.

Separate point but I do think in London the days of doubling/trebling your money on property are over when your buying at today’s prices.

A good wage is one that allows you to do the things you want to do.

It's all relative to outgoings.

If you are child free living debt free in a small flat with modest bills then minimum wage is a good wage.

If you are earning £5000 per month but your essential bills and mortgage are £4500 a month then it's not so good.

help - yes I think you're right about house inflation flatlining now. In my experience, people liquidate other assets / investment portfolios in order to pay the stamp. Or it's entrepreneurs selling a company or city bonuses, that kind of thing.

For me a good wage is dependent on 2 major factors:

Location
Children

If you're in London and Home Counties and have children, a 'good' household wage is £150k+

No children in that location would be £100k

Elsewhere, I think £80k with children and £60k household wage without would be good.

Zola it would still be a "good" wage though, because whilst you would have barely any disposable income you would presumably be paying for premium products such as a better home/area, better childcare, nicer car etc. We all live to our means but those on a higher wage get a better standard of living for it (with the exception of London perhaps where everything is just mental as far as I can tell)

I'm pt 0.5 aged 44. I earn 8.6k annually. That's shit but it's more than NMW.
14 years ago I worked ft and earned 21.5k.
I cannot see any possibility that I will ever earn remotely close to that now.

If you're in London and Home Counties and have children, a 'good' household wage is £150k+
So the 90% of families on less than that are just a bit shit then ?????.

Seriously the rich bubble of some posts on this thread is offensive.

Do you pay your cleaner 150 k?
Or your Childminder?
Or the teacher are school?
Or the cleaner at school?
Or the delivery driver?
Or the bin man?
Or the petrol pump attendant?
Or the restaurant waiter?
Or the gardener?
In fact all the people who let you lead your priviledged life while forgetting that you are leaning on the poor

@BigBaboonBum

Read a few posts, not full thread. Just wondering what you work as from home?? Sounds ideal!

1ndig0

In my experience, people liquidate other assets / investment portfolios in order to pay the stamp. Or it's entrepreneurs selling a company or city bonuses, that kind of thing.

This is where we are going wrong then! Ideally we need to upsize but sooo expensive & Im worried about the uncertainty in the market as it won’t be our forever home.

TalkinPeace -don't you "lean" on delivery drivers, teachers, binmen, etc too though? I could be wrong, but I did read somewhere that the too 1% of earners pay almost 40% of income tax revenue in the U.K. They pay half of every £ they earn in tax. Yes they can afford to, but would you say they are "leaning" any less if they don't use up state school places or create real jobs for others?

But they also have accesses to “wealth management” services ;)

Most people in “professional” roles can avoid it somehow with salary sacrifice mechanisms etc although these are hugely reduced from what they were in the past :(

A decent wage for me is £40k, good wage £60k and ideal wage about £80k plus - at the moment we are in the middle of decent and good wage. We are in Surrey and our rent alone is £20k a year so I have no idea how people in London live on £23k unless they brought when houses prices were very low!

Below £40K you don't know how they manage?! Seriously? Wow. Until 3 years ago I was earning £30K pa as a single parent with 2 kids (for a period of 12 years) and managed just fine, and no I didn't get tax credits. It's about what you spend not what you earn imo.

People who earn £80k plus and complain they are poor, need the Daily Mail to harangue them for not managing their money properly.

Our joint household income is roughly £95k, I don't feel neither poor or rich even though we have no kids, live in a cheaper area of the country, and low mortgage. It was a lot less a few years ago, below national average. To be honest I feel only a little more secure financially but not enough to live luxuriously. We still shop at Asda/Aldi and I only buy clothes and make up if they are on Sale just as before and still feel incredibly guilty. Our luxury is eating out twice a week (not in fancy restaurants), and flying out to see family twice a year. We don't spend what relatives think we spend at our income level and if things might take a bad turn one day, from what we are saving at the moment after expenses it's not enough to feel secure long term. I'd say a household income of £130k would be a high wage. Ours is good but really it's not as life changing as what people think.

The problem with these blanket statements is that while we can all agree NMW is low income and £1m a year is high income, the differentiation in the middle is dependent on so many variables.

Of course you can survive on £30k a year as a single parent but you must have free help to cover childcare and live in a lower cost part of the country. If living in the NW with two school age DC childcare would be about £1500 a month alone. If you have friends or family who help out great.

Same applies to housing. In a place like the NW I'd be living in cheaper areas which is fine as far as I'm concerned. Rent would be £600-800 a month for a small three bed. In the SE rent would be £1500+.

It's interesting though. Mine are both on gap years. The 23 year old is on £22k, (offered three jobs in a week last August), the 19 year old is working 17.5 hours. Was on £9.25 and just upped to £10 something. But the fact is all they have to find is their fares and they feel very well off. That would not be the case if theybwere a young couple in Surrey paying market rent on a one bedroom flat. To buy a small family home they would be starting at £400k and would be stretched even at £70-£80k between them.

I would say DH is on a reasonably good wage at 40k.

We are still skint though as we were rubbish with money before DC and got into lots of debt

You can argue it till the cows come home but there will never be consensus because research shows that people assess their own wealth relative to their immediate peer group/ community and not to any national averages- i.e. wealth is a feeling not a fact

• The person with a 10 year old beaten up Corsa whose friends can't afford cars feels rich
• The person with a new Porsche whose friends have Ferraris feels poor.

In response to BarbaraofSeville about choice of where to live, yes my DH's specialism, lawyer, is only in London. Due to pressure he could not have contemplated a long commute.