To think wages should cover the cost of living?

[KeepYourCup]

I'm a single parent, I work full time and pay for childcare for my primary school ages child. I physically can't work any more hours and my salary is just above the NMW.

I rely on top-up benefits from Universal Credit to get by. We have a nice life - nothing fancy but there is food on the table, a comfortable home, car etc. I realise I am in a better position than many people who claim UC but it pisses me off that I am left relying on it each month.

Last month they wiped out my entire payment with only a couple of days warning. I am appealing that decision but in the meantime I ended up having to borrow money to cover a couple of bills and a repair on my car.

Single parent families are normal, and households should be able to get by on one wage. My rent alone eats up almost half of my take-home pay, and I only live in a two-bed flat so not a huge house with a garden or anything.

I realise its all relative and that everyone's circumstances are different, but there is something very wrong when an adult working full time doesn't earn enough to cover the costs of simple living when there is only one adult and one small person living at home.

AIBU?

I'm in the same situation so I feel for you op. It's the council tax that kills me, that £140 a month I pay really kills my budget. Luckily my rent is cheap

It's the cost of housing, and the cost of housing is the way it is because government will do nothing about waves of international dodgy money pouring into the British housing market. Nor will it tackle the waves of global money pouring into the British housing market because it is a cheap place to park cash as our property taxes are so low compared to other countries.

The answer to this is not "more social housing"; it's stopping the inflationary forces that are pushing average house prices beyond the reach of ordinary people.

It's the council tax that kills me, that £140 a month I pay really kills my budget.

I hear you. The problem is that local government gets number-blind. They don't see £80,000 as being a year's worth of council tax payments from 70-ish homes, nor do they see £1000 a year as pretty much equivalent to a month of someone's take home pay on nmw.

My rent (1135) is about a third more than my take home pay (on 25 hrs), and would only be a few quid less if I worked full time. I'm currently doing a full time masters, so I hope to get a better job after - but housing benefit count 30% of my student loan as income, even though I have less than 5% left after tuition fees. They said it's my choice what I spend it on no it isn't, id have to pay it all back if I didn't pay my fees and got booted out of uni. They wouldn't count any other kind of loan as income - stinks of keeping the poor in their place IMO!

I hate being on benefits. Last year I worked out that if I took a few more hours, I'd be significantly worse off. I'd work more hours for the same money happily because I'm desperate to be off benefits - the amount of times they've just not paid me for no reason over the past few years is ridiculous. But I can't survive on less.

I agree OP - everyone deserves a fair wage. That's why even if I become wealthy and successful, I'll never ever ever vote for any political party that demonises the poor. Don't know how anybody could.

But also some big employers (who make big profits, and in some cases know how to play the tax system) will RELY on the fact that UC or Working Families Tax Credit top up money so they get away with paying close to or minimum wage. More profit for them.

This is what makes me so angry - that the tax payer is essentially funding the profits of big businesses and their share holders by subsidising the wages of their employees. It feels like we are going backwards rather than forwards

I wasn't suggesting you work more hours, but that you could look for a better paid job.
Or find out what you would need to do to be able to apply for a promotion within your current job. Even if you need to study whilst the kids care in bed, it's surely worth it.

But the point is that this job will still need to be done, whether by the op or someone else. Whoever does that job they should be paid enough to live on.

We, as a society, need to have these typically low paid jobs done. We need shop workers, cleaners, bin men, carers, and anyone else on NMW. Even jobs paid more than that - teachers, nurses, fire brigade etc don't earn enough to live on in expensive areas such as the SE. When you think starting salary for a teacher outside of the M25 is £24000 a year.

We need to build houses. We need to build more social housing, enough of it for it not to be exclusively occupied by those most extremely disadvantaged. 30-40 years ago, you had a choice, you either paid X on rent, or you paid X+Y on a mortgage, but at the end of it you owned your house. Nowadays it's the other way around - not only do you end up owning the house, but you pay less on the mortgage than you would on rent. Rent controls used to keep rents down, but that would be totally unacceptable in today's climate.

In work benefits are a subsidy to employers, but I don't know whether you could enforce wage increases and remove the subsidies, or whether that would mean companies would move abroad to lower wage economies. Brexit doesn't exactly help either. We're in the position of being a high-cost place to live in a global market place.

We could do with a more intelligent approach to UC. It would help if our government included more people who had actually been employed, and especially employed in a low wage job.

Even if OP magics up a better paid job (whikst working FT and caring for a young child) someone has to do OPs job or it wouldnt exist. Surely that person should be able to live. Or shoukd all people do better paid jobs only.

I believe many of our problems in this country have arisen from tax credits, housing benefits and uc. The welfare state should be a true fall back for those unable to work.

Instead we have a ludicrous situation of working people being forced to claim benefits to get by. Companies get away with paying too little (whilst profits accelerate paying the rich more and more). Landlords are able to put up there rents because at the bottom end the state pays it which puts the cost of living up for everyone. Ridiculous - if the state wasn't paying market forces would mean that rents were set at an affordable level.

Op I feel
For you. It shouldn't be like this.

And where are the council houses. I have no problem with right to buy but the money from right to buy should go into new housing stock.

if the state wasn't paying market forces would mean that rents were set at an affordable level.

Spot on. Plus the price of houses would be kept lower too. As each hose on our street goes up for sale it is being bought by a landlord because they are too expensive for their target market (first time buyers ) to buy. Landlords can afford it because their mortgage is being paid by the rent and no doubt UC or housing benefit.

It feels like we are going backwards rather than forwards We are. the level of wealth inequality is steadily increasing. In my lifetime the average FTSE100 CEO pay has gone from about 25 times that of their average worker, to nearly 150 times, and there's no sign of this trend reversing. 50% of full time workers earn less than £29000.

Agreed OP. I think that everyone who works full time should have enough to live on plus money for a few pints/cinema etc. It’s not that much to ask for!

I honestly think this is a side effect of NMW. Or at least in part. Yes some people earn more because of it but it means that many employers will only pay NMW. It also means that because everyone is now paid at that rate, the cost of everything has gone up to pay for staff so the wages don't buy anything extra and in some cases, less.

My rent & council tax (HA 2 bed flat, no garden in a half decent area) is 50% of my take home pay.

At the minute I get tax credits but those will stop in a years time. There is no scope for a pay increase to the level I'd need to cover the drop in income - £6,000 gross.

Once the tax credits (& of course CM) stop after basic household bills, fuel & food I'll be left with £15 a week to cover any extra expenses - £780 a year to buy any clothes, shoes, haircuts etc I may need, washing machine/cooker/fridge freezer if they decide to pack in, Birthday/Christmas presents, days out etc.

Due to her course DD will receive a bursary from college of around £80pw so won't be in a position to contribute but she'll still need feeding, washing & clothed (she is looking for a part time job) & for the 3 months during the summer she'll get zero unless she has a job. But as far as the government are concerned she's my financial responsibility until she's 25 - not her fathers though his responsibility stops next year

This is what happens when people who have never lived in the real world make the decisions - make the MP's salary NMW & I bet it jumps rapidly!

Even if you need to study whilst the kids care in bed, it's surely worth it.

Please see my previous post as to how the benefits system penalises this - they already set their amounts to the lowest possible anybody could get by on, then class the loan you pay your tuition fees with as household income.

The loan left over, I can see why they do it, though I don't necessarily agree with it, because no other loan would be taken into account in this way - and you have to pay it back, to them (the government), with an unfavourable rate of interest. But the money spent on tuition fees?

You'd think they'd want to encourage further education for single parents and the like - they always bang on about social mobility and meritocracy. But it stems from an ideology of keeping the plebs and the dregs at the bottom of the food chain, IMO.

Wages are the main problem. My dc/nephews/nieces some with degrees only earn 3/4 of my wage over 19 years ago. I don't have a degree. People are expected to be grateful to have a minimum wage job with ridiculous contacts and little benefits. Yet they can barely afford to live. It's wrong.

30-40 years ago, you had a choice, you either paid X on rent, or you paid X+Y on a mortgage, but at the end of it you owned your house. Nowadays it's the other way around - not only do you end up owning the house, but you pay less on the mortgage than you would on rent.

This is so true! I worked out that I'd need to be on over £100k a year as a single parent to get a 75% mortgage for an average 2 bed house round here. And I know I could move, and maybe I'll have to one day, but £100k?! And guess what? My mortgage payments would still be less than the rent I pay now!

Absolutely agree. I am single and my kids are grown up and my rent is cheap, but I STILL struggle to get by, and am not eligible for any benefits. I can manage fine as long as nothing goes wrong (I was off sick for three weeks in June (hospital) and had to take a huge hit to the pay packet as I'm on a 16 hour contract, so sick pay was negligible, even though I more usually work much more than that).

I can't afford to heat my house. I live in lots of clothes. It's my trade off so I can pay the bills and eat. It's horrifying in the North in winter...

Imo this all stems from the sale of council houses and the shortage of social housing that created.

As supply of social housing diminished councils looked to private landlords to make up the shortfall. This created a lucrative market in private rent and pushed up prices. This should have been held down by market forces ie wages would have capped how high rents could go but instead benefits stepped in to pay the higher rents and so they just carried on rising.

Becoming a landlord then became more popular. They could afford to.pay more for a property because it was going to be one a source of income and so they could out bid private buyers, thus pushing up house prices. So we now have a double whammy - higher house prices and higher rents.

As employers realised that benefits would make up shortfalls in income they were able to reduce wages or, once NMW came in, reduce hours so we now see lots of zero hours contracts in jobs that were once full time - supermarkets is a prime example. New employees employed on 10 hour per week contracts at name but expected to flex up to full time as and when needed.

It's one reason I'm glad I'm not eligible for benefits too.

How the hell would UC (which I have heard nightmare reports about) deal with one week working at 16 hours, next week at 39 hours, back to 27 hours and then up to 36? And different every single month?

Wages are a problem. My dc nursery has increased fees to cover the new living wage, i don't have an issue with that but my wage was frozen for years so with every increase of fees things grew tighter. They need to unfreeze the wages of those they froze too.

The other issue is if NRP aren't contributing to their dcs upbringing. I have several friends struggling because of this rather then just wages.

It's really grim. I don't know how people can afford rent, it's so expensive and I live in the north where it's cheaper!

I'm in a similar position.

Single parent, I work 3 days but 3 long days which is almost full time, anymore and I'm worse off. I cover 100% of everything with no financial help from my Ex (Which would make my situation better). If she's ill I am even worse off because I don't get paid (well I do but then a few weeks later I lose a shift as I'm on low hours contract and take overtime, once I lose that shift I'm worse off as I get more UC but it's not the equivalent of that shift so I basically am paying for my DD to be ill).