National Minimum Wage

[Undercoverbanana]

AIBU to think that if this is supposed to be be a wage that can support an adult human to a reasonable standard in 2018 Britain, the current rates are nowhere near sufficient.

How the hell can you buy a flat or rent a property on NMW? Then your hours go up and down and it’s impossible to budget anyway.

These already wealthy and posh politicians have no bloody idea do they?

Or perhaps you are on NMW and you do manage. How? Why are people not bloody furious at this enormous injustice in society. Are the politicians just hoping that millions of people just die on the streets?

I always think that the National Minimum Wage stands for "I would like to pay you less, however legally I have to pay you at least X amount".

I've previously calculated NMW is about right. I reckon it should be set so that a household containing two adults both working full time should have an income exactly at the official poverty line (for a household of that type.)

Living alone costs nearly twice as much as living with at least one other adult and splitting expenses, it's reasonable if any subsidies/support people get don't stretch that far. (Minimum wage has an element of subsidy, in that if forces employers to pay slightly more than the labour is worth.)

It is doable but not a great way of life.
It doesn’t give people must incentive to want to go out and work if companies can’t even pay a fair wage.

I agree that for some people what you say is true. Likely those people don’t necessarily buy into the idea that working to support yourself is preferable to being on benefits even if it doesn’t pay that much more. But I think a lot of people would consider working important for their self respect and do it anyway even if benefits paid not too much less. Work has a lot of benefits other than just financial.

I will admit that the years I spent trying to survive on NMW zero hour contract jobs motivated me to work my arse off to get a better education and a career as I knew I’d rather not be alive than know that was what the rest of my life held for me. I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to do so, I know.

I bought my flat 4 years ago earning just above NMW.

Ridiculous as i could afford the mortgage but couldn't afford to rent anywhere so that's why i bought

When I was in nmw, I wasn't expecting to own a house or have a car etc. I was in a house share and walked/cycled everywhere.
I worked my way up, and bought a house about ten years later. I thought that was fairly normal.

Lazypuppy

How did you afford the deposit? I’m genuinely just curious, when I was on NMW there wasn’t enough to cover my living costs let alone save, let alone save thousands for a deposit! Did you live with family for cheaper or free housing or borrow from a relative or something?

NHW you wouldn’t be able to rent unless you could find a landlord willing to rent directly - there are a few. You’d get a one bed for £750 per month possibly lower if you were exceptionally lucky.

Gross wages of £12000 would mean you’d be able to get HB & council tax relief for the next few day / after that UC and council tax relief

Council tax you’d be expecting to pay £140 and hopefully get a discount

So £850 on rent and council tax before any other utilities

JessieLemon - yes I agree with you. I work because I actually enjoy working and for my self respect. There is no way as a single woman with no children benefits would cover all my bills, probably not even half so I would have to move back in with my parents. I love my flat and having my own independence and that’s why I work hard (albeit in a NMW job) to keep it.

Besides the financial aspect of things, I do genuinely enjoy my job and work with a great group of people. It’s a shame that there is not a lot of progression in the role I’m in and that’s why I would like to retrain for a better job.

I guess everyone has to start somewhere and I imagine minimum wage jobs are just that.

It would help if there were more regulation of rented housing, and more social housing.
This is why council housing was introduced. People need to live near where they work. Housing and job stability reduces stress and civil unrest. Its not rocket science.

When I worked NMW-style jobs (in that it was a long time ago and NMW wasn't invented, so it was just basic low low pay, womens pay often being lower than mens back then) I worked 2-3 jobs so a Mon-Fri 8-4, a pub evening job, and an early morning pub cleaning job, and Fri /Sat nights in a night club job. Basically worked every spare hour to save.
Once I had bought a house, I didn't buy new everything, all secondhand. No eating out (there weren't many restaurants) F&C (being the only takeaway bar Chinese) was a luxury I didn't afford. Didn't do holidays either.
I think that was considered fairly normal in the late 1970s? But stand to be corrected.
I know nowadays one has to also afford a foreign holiday, new furniture, new kitchen etc, a car, to expect to go out/eat out at least once or twice a week, to buy pre-packaged processed food which is more expensive than raw ingredients etc, to turn up the heating rather than add a couple of layers etc, so it's all a lot less affordable today than it was back then.

I agree OP, the NMW should be enough to live off without needing benefits as a top up.

Oh and one more: rummage sale/jumble sale clothing was FAR cheaper than charity shop!

ariel how offensive! I'm a single mum to a toddler I work full time on NMW and need benefits to help cover bills. I have no debt and I struggle. I don't live beyond my means, I don't have takeaways, I never go out, i have a car but my mum pays the insurance and tax and things I just put petrol in it which actually works out cheaper than public transport. I don't "expect" foreign holidays brand new cars or anything else. I just want to get by.

At the very least NMW should cover my frugal lifestyle without the need for benefits.

You are so out of touch Ariel.

@JessieLemon well i only needed a 5% deposit which was about £4.5k. I bought it straight after uni, and had worked 3 p/t jobs in my final year so saved it up. Took out an interest free credit card to pay solicitors and buy everything i needed, then paid that off before it would have started charging interest.

Surely National Minimum Wage should provide the minimum standard of living.If you want an average standard of living, you need to progress to an average wage, and if you want a high standard of living, you'll need to earn a high wage. NMW jobs are not something you should aspire to stay in for the whole of your working life.

I agree @mrsm43s
If minimum wage could get you your own house and a decent standard of living, then people wouldn't aspire to get a job with more responsibility but more pay.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens as more and more jobs are automated. Think supermarket staff (shops have far fewer staff now and the rise of self checkouts and I imagine robot shelf stackers aren’t far off) driverless vehicles, even office admin jobs.

What will happen to the minimum wage workers in these unskilled jobs when they no longer exist?

People on minimum wage who are single manage to rent by claiming housing benefit or Universal credit. Or they house share.

Average house in 1978 was £13k the average wage in 1980 was £5k

Now the national average wage is £28k so multiply that by 4 and you can borrow just over £100k the average house cost is £225k

Doubt you can borrow 4x your salery any longer, even if you have a couple they will struggle to borrow for an average priced house

YABU in your supposition the NMW is supposed to provide "a wage that can support an adult human to a reasonable standard in 2018 Britain". It's a gesture, the minimum they can get away with.

Zero hours isn't the only problem. At minimum wage or just above, the business models of a number of companies is based on people having a contract for, say, 10 hours, then at busy tme they can be offered more hours and at quiet times they're back down to their minimum. Great for the employer, but not for the employee - in theory they could get another, say, 20 job but a) if they turn down hours with the first employee, they'll always be last in the queue for extra hours b) neither employer will publish rotas more than a few days in advance, so how do you juggle two jobs?

Loosening planning laws sounds a good idea, but in practice that's not where the log jam is. Almost all housebuilding is in the hands of large companies, and they ensure the supply is not so great as to affect prices. It was recently calculated that houses with planning permission but not yet built exceeded the annual rate of house building. Then of course there's that extra step where land is owned/bought with no intention of building, merely of obtaining planning permission in order to sell onwards at a much higher price.

I guess everyone has to start somewhere and I imagine minimum wage jobs are just that. I thought that was one of the problems today - that more and more people are finding it impossible ever to move away from NMW?

I also find it ridiculous how much people earning NMW are expected to care about their jobs! At that level I would expect employees to do their job to the required standard in a polite manner. Instead retail jobs in particular demand big smiles, caring about the customer, going the extra mile, abuse from customers staying for free after your shift has finished etc.

All for £7.83 an hour if you are aged 25+

An 18-20 year could be working full time on £5.90 an hour.

MereDintofPandiculation - that’s exactly the position I’m in now, I’ve been in my current job for around 4 years and there is no progression in my role, this is why I’d like to retrain to do something else.

The issue I have is that most of the sessions in my local college are during the day and I can’t attend due to being in work, there are some evening classes although they start at 5pm and some days I don’t finish work until 6pm so it just doesn’t work.

I could always go back to college full time but that would mean leaving my home and moving back in with my parents as I need a job to pay the rent and bills.

I think there should definitely be more help in terms of education and training for working people. A lady I know who doesn’t work (has kids) is able to attend college full time and have her rent and bills paid for by benefits, as a single person without any children I would never receive the help she gets which I find very unfair (but that’s another argument).