Min wage should be lower up north to make it higher down south.

[Witchofwisteria]

Hear me out. Minimum wage should be given out on more of a regional basis. I think this would help spread the wealth and prevent poverty in such crushingly expensive places like London?

Example: If you live in Hull minimum wage should be £7ph but if you live in London it should be £15ph. Purely because you can rent a lush 3 bed house in Hull for £400-£600 pcm but in London (rougher areas and outskirts) it would be £1800+ at least.

Seems daft to keep increasing minimum wage nationwide when some areas can clearly get more for their money and therefore require less money to live a reasonable life and some require more! (London needs fast food staff, retail workers and cleaners too!) I think something similar with benefits should also happen but I don't know enough about the ins and outs of universal credit to think about the adjustments required.

Thoughts?

Rent/house prices are only part (often significant part yes) of outgoings though.

Food, petrol, gas, water, electricity are the same in hull as in London. Clothes cost the same.

The cinema is 3x the price where I live (northish) compared to London. Fair enough, that’s a luxury but what I’m saying it’s not all cheap as chips up here.

Public transport is so shit that a lot of people would need to be able to run a car to be able to get to work. You have to travel greater distances in rural areas so again higher transport costs.

Yes, that's a good point. There are places in the country where a car is required if you are to work, and not many of those are in London.

Every day's a school day and today I've learned I could live like a queen in Hull on minimum wage. I could bake cakes in Hull

Fuck off you idiot, you have no idea

Can't quite believe what I'm reading.

Neither can I CrazySheepLady, when our young people have to move out of their beloved communities because they cannot afford to live there thanks to selfish second home owners who spend a month in their holiday homes and deprive our young people of somewhere to live and hike up the house prices, it makes me sick

Surely housing is just one thing though? Houses in the north of Scotland are considerably cheaper than London but food, fuel, travel are all loads more. There aren't as many job opportunities or leisure activities either. Wages are already lower on average.

What is your goal? It sounds like you'd just like housing to be affordable. Which is reasonable but it requires everyone to accept that when you buy a house you'll only sell it on for roughly what you paid. If everyone continues to see housing as some sort of savings account that guarantees an enormous return they'll never get out of the current appalling housing situation.

And what about areas in the north of the UK like Edinburgh and Aberdeen, where you will find FA 3 bedrooms much less 'lush' ones for the magical Hull price . But hey, fuck 'em. They're not special enough for a higher min wage.

Exactly Alec - what southerners do not realise or fail to acknowledge is the fact that commuting from rural areas to places of work add significantly to costs of living, assuming that there are jobs to be had in the first place. I challenge anyone who lives in the London conurbation to try and make a living in the north and maintain the quality of life they currently enjoy. I guarantee they will fail

Not read the thread. Public sector workers do so much better up a North. The 25k buys jack shit down here but would get you an a tural mortgage further north,
There are a loads of teachers, social workers etc but less actual businesses further up the country .Unfortunately it's enough to sustain places but not enough to grow towns and cities. That needs serious money

People go where the money is.It's why you get slums round cities rather even though staying in a poorer community may give a a better aesthetic quality of life.

Rather than making the poor marginally better off we need to attract the mega bucks up North,

Salaries already are higher in London. Companies don’t have to pay more than min wage. That doesn’t mean they can’t. Lots of jobs are better paid in London. DH is a manager based up north and he earns £20k less than his employees in London who are technically underneath him.

mingebags are you trying to compete with the OP as to who can say the most ignorant made up shite?

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Sheworebluevelvet - what planet do you live on? Try getting a mortgage in some of our rural areas

I challenge anyone who lives in the London conurbation to try and make a living in the north and maintain the quality of life they currently enjoy.

Thousands do this every year. And write about it in great detail. Larger homes, shorter commutes on average, increased disposable incomes even with lower incomes, cleaner air, more space. I know people I’ve worked with who moved from Greater London to (among other places) Leeds, Manchester, Hexham, Newcastle and York, among other places. They bloody rave about their improved quality of life on the aforementioned points. It’s not for me - at least not now - but your assertion betrays a complete ignorance of what life is like for most Londoners.

For example you seem to think long commutes are unknown to Londoners (who have the longest commutes in the country according to the ONS).

If you’re going to make sweeping statements about others being clueless, don’t you think you should invest in a clue yourself?

@Ceilingrose That is a ridiculous suggestion as wages already are lower up north and high down south. I thought everyone knew that.

Yes but they are not in-line with property values. Apologies for rounding down in my post, I don't think we should TAKE money away from families in the north I just think we need to review the pay of people in more expensive areas, the more expensive areas being the south instead of keep on upping min wage for all by a few pence each year!

Give the money where property prices are massively out pricing people from living a normal life on min wage.

£7.83 x 40 hours a week = £1252; as I have shown above you CAN rent a 3 bedroom property in Hull (some of which properties which are nicer than a lot of people's before you all squark "that's a shit hole") for £450-£600 pcm. So ultimately 50% or less of your wage could be spent on rent. Compare that to properties in the south that don't get London weighting wage (since you're all so quick to say Wetherspoons, Sainsbury's etc pay more in London - just forgot about the thousands of companies that still don't) you could not even cover the rent, let alone the bills for a 3 bedroom house in Redhill, Gatwick, Brighton, Croydon, Surrey, Reading etc... thats the massive difference. Bare in mind virtually no estate agents take housing benefit!

FYI: rent prices in these areas that do not get special London wage for minimum wage employees:

Cheapest 3 bed house (maisonette) in Brighton 1 mile radius, £1025. There are just 9 properties, 4 of which are only for students listed on RM for less than £1200, the rest are all flats!

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/fullscreen/image-gallery.html?propertyId=77041217&photoIndex=2

Redhill cheapest 3 bed which is a flat £1025 www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-57798876.html

Croydon; had absolutely nothing on RM with 3 bedrooms for less than £1200, so had to up the filter to £1300. www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-77058608.html

Why do people always think the south is only London? 
*
I’m two hours further south than London and it’s still way more expensive to rent or buy here than midlands or the north*

Oh the irony. You do realise that "the north" also features more than one place too don't you? There seems to always be some sort of image of the north as a bleak land of poverty. Whilst I'm sure that in some parts this is true, it is also true in some parts of the south. I live in Cumbria. Definitely northern but certainly no cheaper to live in than Hampshire etc.

If you mean London OP, say London. Not "the south". Ditto Hull etc and not "the north".

I know that its been posted upthread but the answer is to stop being city centric and spread the businesses across the country.

If those that invested so much in to London, Manchester, Liverpool etc. had done the same in the rural areas we wouldn't have the current issues that we are having now.

Were would the divide be? Just so Im on the right side.

Wow, the anger and bitterness towards London and Londoners is palpable.

If those that invested so much in to London, Manchester, Liverpool etc. had done the same in the rural areas we wouldn't have the current issues that we are having now

has it not occurred to you that much of the areas you listed were rural before people 'invested' in them?

Why do people always think the south is only London?

The same reason they think the north is only as far as Barrow

So if you were born in London, grew up there, and your friends and family live there, but you don’t make enough to afford life there, it’s just tough luck and you should just up and move potentially miles away?As someone else pointed out, people across the country have to do this all the time.

I couldn't stay in my Midlands hometown, because there were no decent jobs. My husband couldn't stay in his Yorkshire home town, because there were no jobs.

And there are extra costs living outside of London that have to be considered. Due to the lack of investment compared to London, much of the country is lacking decent public transport, making needing a car more likely,for example.

If you can't afford to live in London, don't live in London - go live in a cheaper part of the country. Yadbu to suggest that people who are already financially struggling should subsidise your choice.

Obviously in an ideal world, businesses should be forced to provide a proper living wage, rather than making the lowest paid scrape by with benefit top ups - as the tax payer shouldn't be subsidising private business in such a way.

I think the main problem with this stupid idea, is that you've suggested taking money away from people already struggling to survive for no reason... Why not just suggest the increase the minimum wage in London? Why take money away? Why make people's lives hell? Who on earth possibly benefits from lower wages in the north?

I can see your logic in the idea and in some ways this sort of things exists.

For example different areas have different housing benefit rates dependent on market rate and in inert London and outer London, teachers for example, get paid a different salary to those outside of London.

However the above posters are right - what needs to happen is an overhaul of the system and for their to be a decent living wage that reflects cost of food and housing.

Most people earn 20-30k (guessing!). Houses in my parents area were 80-100k 25 years ago when people earned the same sort of salary. Now they are 250-300k but the wages haven't increased by the same percentage.

My parents are teachers. There is only so much increase in salary you can get and they've both worked long and hard at the job - they couldn't afford the area now with 1 FT worker and 1 who is working and being a sahm over a 12 year period.