..to think that £6.15 an hour...

[BertrandRussell]

.....really is shit wages?

I can see this from a few angles. I think overall, the minimum wage for any age group is crap.
And I do agree with the sentiment of a pp that low wages and poor treatment of staff only seems to be an issue to some people (and having read your posts and other threads etc you don't seem to have that attitude @BertrandRussell) when it suddenly happens to a middle class teenager in their first job. Anyone else who has concerns and actually living in it for any length of time tends to be written off as not aspirational and lazy.
However wrt to 16-18 year old wages, I work with a lot in this age group, it's very often their first job and being quite honest, it can be harder working shifts with them for the first 6 months than doing it on your own. They have no idea what's expected of them, and you almost have to teach them not just the mechanics of the job but the other things that go with working - turning up on time, dressing appropriately, how to behave etc etc. I absolutely think it's worth it, because theses skills are priceless, but it's hard being the one 'training' someone too! But then I do think that 18 should be the cut off point, and that 18-24 year olds should be on the same wage as over 25 - and that should be a wage that can be lived on at full time hours.

At 18 I earned £3.36 an hour, technically although I was salaried and worked an extra 20 hours a week for free as part of the "management" team. Yes, I was a department manager earning that. The inflation calculator tells me that today's equivalent is £5.49. I didn't live with my parents at the time, I shared a house with my boyfriend, yet I survived.

Just because things were even shitter in the past doesn’t make them not shit now!

The other issue is high rents. It's a bit chicken and egg

I was 16 when I left home. Was living in a hostel and was on £4 an hour working full time at Mcdonalds. I agree it's stupid they underpay young people but, I guess most people assume they will be still living at home and being supported by family.

Its why they tried to remove the housing benefit for under 25's and also why on UC they are paid £70 less.

This thread was about disparity in wages between an 18 year old and a 21 year old doing exactly the same job. There's no way that can be argued as fair. It doesn't matter that the 18 year old might live at home and be supported by parents. Parents shouldn't have to supplement wages.
It's like the old excuse given to paying women less because it was only 'pin money'. Although that wasn't actually true either - women's wages were supporting their families.
If you do a job, your age shouldn't mean you get paid less. It's morally wrong.

Minimum wage generally is a separate issue. I believe people should be paid a living wage and the state shouldn't be picking up the wage bill for employers by way of top up benefits. As for the cleaner single mum with 3 DC, referred you thread, the father of those children ought to be held financially responsible for them, not just the mother

OP your point is valid in a purely logical sense, in that there is no reason why a 16 year old and a 25 year old should be paid differently because of their ages. But that is assuming that the 25 year old (who has nine years’ start on the 16 year old) has no relevant experience or qualifications which they can bring to the job. I certainly don’t think your home circumstances should dictate your hourly rate.

I’m also thinking that from your description the job your DC is taking (for which he has “specific skills”) may be somewhat niche and therefore a job which might attract competition, so means that the employer can pay the legal minimum.

I would also have liked to hear more from a previous poster who said that their apprentices/young workers actually cost them money until they are well into their training period.

I don’t think the infantilisation of offspring helps either - these boards are full of posters protesting “how dare you imply that my 23 year old isn’t still a child” when people are suggesting parents stop coddling them.

As you say, these practices severely impact on the choices of young people whose families are too poor and too busy just keeping their heads above water to be posting on Mumsnet.

And the points put forward by posters about care work are valid too. You could argue that all work requiring no specific qualifications at the outset should be paid the same, because I’m not sure why a care home worker and a train driver should be paid differently (I’m sure some outraged train drivers will be along in a minute to tell me though!)

Spot on, SinkGirl.

Totally agree @Crustytoenail

On the flip side - this is why DH has having no luck getting a part time job - why hire someone who is over 35 when you could get someone under 18?

Sorry to side track. It’s really getting me down

Some of us have to live on the equivalent of that because we are not young and fit.

I have a complete NI record so I'm on track for a full old age pension, I currently get ESA and PIP and because I did the right thing and paid into a pension I get a small pension.

I am allowed to keep £85.00 per week of my pension, the rest of it is halved because I am receiving ESA, this means I get no help with my rent.

When my pension increases with the cost of living my ESA is reduced by the same amount.

So Im being penalised because I have paid both NI and into a pension.

The minimum wage for adults in 2012 was something like £6.19

I've worked for 1 Employer where everyone was paid the same and there were a lot of A level students (call centre 16 hours p/w). It paid over the adult minimum wage for the time I think. 6k for 16 hours in 2011.

When clearing my mum's stuff, I found her job offer letter from 1967. She was moving to London from Glasgow to work for the Inland Revenue as a Tax Officer. Salary was £666. Interestingly, if under 21 entitled to travel cost reimbursement for moving and "cheap fares for visits home".

Yes it's shit. We pay 16-17 year old summer placement interns £7 an hour at my work and all they really do is shadow. Recently Increased if from £6 cos that seemed pretty low to cover travel etc.

When I was under 21 and got paid £3.90 As a student in part time work I used to work overtime in the holidays ( 6 x 12 hour shifts a week )and end up with quite a lot of cash!

It’s terrible, but depending on the circumstances - eg is travel necessary, etc it could be doable.

7 years ago I used to do a full 40 hour week on this salary and bought my first home £115k with my DH also earning the same wage.

I’m not saying it’s right though, lower paid jobs for all ages are not rising with inflation. I earned £4.5 per hour when I was 18, 13 years ago but I could also fill up my car for a week on £20.

DS (also 16) qualified as a lifeguard and earns about £6.40 a hour!

That's about 50p an hour more than I earned as a qualified lifeguard c1989 age 16-17. I got £7/h for teaching swimming (also qualified), and it was substantially more than waiting tables or stacking supermarket shelves would have got me at the time.

I would have expected lifeguard pay to have gone up rather more in 30 years.

That's all well and good if your job is in Birmingham
That was just an example. As BarbaraofSeville said - it will be the same in great swathes of the country. Of course, if I'd just listed loads of cities, those posters saying it isn't possible would have wanted specific figures.
As BeyondMyWits says - her dd is feeling pretty comfortable on min wage, even only working 24 hours a week. The mass outrage at a new entrant to a job is paid a minimal wage is somewhat misplaced IMO.

Great post from Titchy at 8:38

I think the issue is, many people are looking at it with the eyes of one situation, without looking at the bigger picture.

Over the last few years, my City Council has committed to only give funding to the Nursries that pay the 'Living Wage' rather than the NMW. All good, and to be applauded you'd think. Of course, the Nurseries still need to keep a small pay differential to encourage staff to take on extra responsibility (Room Laader, SENCo, Deputy, and Manager) so the wage bills rose considerably (remember there are add on costs like pension and, this came in around the time when everyone had to provide employees with a pension - another cost for employers).. Again, all good for the individuals working in the Nurseries (and everyone employed by the City previously on NMW). However, the increase in costs has to be met from somewhere. Sadly, many Nurseries have closed as the owners can no longer afford to operate, and others have cut back to bare minimum numbers of staff, so can no longer take the dc with additional needs (social as well as SEN/D) that they used to really support well.
There are probably weekly threads on MN complaining about the high cost of Nursery for their dc, and how people can't make their budgets work. Same with threads about the "extortionate cost" of elderly relatives in care homes. Just two examples. People saying 'everyone should be paid more' also has to be prepared to pay more for their childcare, elderly care, goods in shops, meals out, deliveries from internet shopping, things like parking at hospitals (another favourite outrage thread) as NHS tries to balance how to pay their cleaning and security staff and so it goes on. Of course, if all those costs go up, then they also go up for the people who are on minimum wage too, so they end up not being better off as their outgoings go up.
IMO, what needs to be looked at is the Differentiation between what all those on the lowest wages earn and some of the ridiculous amounts of money paid to a small minority of professions.

Just had a look at rooms our way- nothing less than £400 a month. Always with a deposit and a month in advance. Not sure what bills and council tax would be on top of that- another £70 a month? Bus pass another £30 a month (goes up to £60 when you reach 19) . So £500. Leaving you about £100 a week for food, clothes, phone and everything else. Perfectly doable- if not a lot of fun...

It's 1k per month if ft hours. At 18-20, I'd say that's fine. 250 to you for bed and board, 100 for fuel or bus pass, 650 left9ver. Plenty to spend/save.

Depends how many hours he works and where you live, will he still be living at home? If yes then he should be ok you could just take £50 a week for board ect! Everyone has to start somewhere you should encourage him rather than feeding him the idea that he is above that wage (not sure if that’s what you intended but that’s how this post reads).

Leaving you about £100 a week for food, clothes, phone and everything else. Perfectly doable- if not a lot of fun...

I can assure you my dd, along with all her uni friends, and I suspect the vast majority of MN student-offspring, have an awful lot of fun for £100 week...DD manages to eat (smoked salmon, avocado ), go to clubs, party, save for a week in Spain, travel to see friends and buy too manyclothes on that!

Well obviously if you can rent a room for £250 you can manage on minimum wage. Again this is regional and there sometimes isn't much to choose from.

I rented my uni room for about this and naively assumed I'd be able to do this in the real world.

Fair enough. But I do think being a student is different to being a working person. Everyone in the same boat, subsidised bars and entertainment and so on. But if all mumsnetters children have inherited the chicken gene they’ll be OK!