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 agree. I haven't had a pay rise for 17 years, and yes, I have asked for one many times. The only reason the average is salary is 30k is because the better paid jobs have continued to get pay rises year on year, whereas the lowest paid have been stuck on crap wages for decades. The economy is doomed and more and more businesses will go bust because it's the poorest that spend money (when they have it), not the richest. The richest take their money overseas - buying property, offshore bank accounts etc.

@NatashaAlianovaRomanova
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
Of course she needs to contribute! That’s what the bursary is for. She needs to give you £30 for food and she will have £50 left for travel , clothes toiletries and socialising which is more than enough.

Yanbu its disgusting how massive companys with billions in profits can get away with paying nmw.
Nothing will change until we get someone in charge of the country who understands this.

I think we should make minimum wage £12 an hour and scrap in work benefits. Claiming benefits whilst working is humiliating. Benefits should be for people who cannot work, or people between jobs. And scrap or lower council tax.

It's wages that are the problem. I recently went back to work after a long time as a SAHM.

I was so shocked whilst jobhunting at the wages. They didn't seem to have gone up since I last worked 15 years ago.

And the cost of living has skyrocketed due to housing costs.

Imo the nmw needs to be at least £20ph to enable everyone to have a decent standard of living without needing benefits.

But of course that's never going to happen as it would seriously dent the profits of big business aka the best friends of the Tory govt.

Wages are insanely low, while food rent and transport go up and up.
My wage 20 years ago in a low paid entry level job equates to 25 k now, using an inflation calculator. That same job actually pays about 17k. So wages have effectively been going down. A lot.
A thousand pounds a year on council tax and a thousand pounds a year on energy and a thousand a year on the bus fare to get to work..these are normal figures now, let alone the 14k a year even low waged people are paying on rent!
The numbers don't add up. It's obvious to a child that if min wage is 8.21 and rent on a 2 bed flat in a very unglamorous part of outer London is over a thousand a month then something doesn't add up.

Just raise wages for the lowest paid. Keep it simple. If we have a load of different complicated schemes (rent controls, shared ownership properties, and a million and one different benefits) then there are more places where people can fall between the cracks; plus the admin of it all for government and people is a living nightmare.

Totally agree.. it's absolute madness that someone could be working full time and can not afford the basics. Completely counter intuitive and demoralising.

Either NMW needs to go up or rent/council tax down. Something has got to give eventually!

@dimsum123 a small business would fold in a month if NMW was £20. It's not doable. I worked out one of my clients hourly wage the other day, it's 63 pence per hour. He is the business owner. Fucking sad state of affairs.

What some people don't understand about benefits in addition to all this is that they aren't at all reliable. This year alone mine were stopped between January and March whilst they did an investigation. Now they've been stopped again from August till ? Yes if you get them back you get it backdated but that doesn't cover the overdraft charges, interest, impact on your credit score and general stress of being £500 worse off for months.
That feeling of seeing a brown envelope through the door when you get home from work, what terrifying news will it contain? Checking your bank account every Friday to see if they've magically appeared back in yet.
Yesterday my phone stopped working for a few hours and I nearly broke down as I knew I wouldn't be able to afford a new one anytime soon and I rely on it to pay my electric bill, pay my childminder, do work, apply for jobs, move money about between credit cards and bank account, sell things on FB.

userxx - but if more people had more money to spend then most viable businesses would be a lot more successful.

The problem is a catch 22

Companies don’t pay enough so that people who work full time end up having to rely on benefits and they don’t pay enough because they know the benefit system will cover any short fall.

I always wonder how sustainable these companies are if they are only in profit because they don’t pay their workers a living wage.

think we should make minimum wage £12 an hour and scrap in work benefits.
Well no because plenty of people earn £12 an hour and still need in work benefits.

I agree op however for those saying to increase NMW, this doesn't just hit big business. I'm in the care industry and whilst I don't remotly agree with the low wages, if it was increased significantly most of the small care companies would be out of business in a month.

The payments from local authority are insanely low for beds in a care home and the smaller companies would not be able to wear it. Unless every high is increased it wouldn't work. If everything was increase where would the money for that come from? Most likely taxes because it's unlikely the government would source it properly. So we would all be paying more tax.

It's crap I agree but there is no simple quick fix answer

Wages are hideously low. Housing costs are too high.

Huge numbers of parents I know (usually women) aren't in work because living off a single wage is more cost effective. Once you've factored in breakfast clubs, after school clubs and holiday clubs a second wage is wiped out. It's no wonder school jobs although poorly paid are like gold dust.

Yet large employers get away with poor salaries because they know their employees will be bailed out by the government or a higher earning partner. It's scandalous.

I don’t think raising NMW would work as well as targeting some of the unavoidable costs of living i.e. housing, transport, childcare.

Giving people more income gives a green light to companies to raise their prices or in the case of housing people use their income to compete in a competitive market just compounding the problem. If there was a workable and accessible ‘value’ option people would be able to take advantage of it to put themselves in a better position. There’s no breathing room to achieve that these days without a heavy dose of lucky opportunity.

The care companies would definitely be gone within a month and you can only imagine the fall out from that. I don't have the answer but I deal with small businesses and I see them struggle weekly. An increase in the NMW would sink so many.

@userxx yes I realise that. But equally workers are essentially 'folding' too as they can't afford the basics despite working full time.

It's a terrible state of affairs in the 21st century in the 6th largest economy in the world.

It's true that wages are far too low and housing far too expensive. Raising interest rates would be a great start.

But it's not quite right to say that wages should cover the cost of living because people are perfectly free to make expensive/bad decisions.

@dannydyerismydad it is nearly always women and it makes me so sad. Most days I talk to a woman who is passionate, educated, hard working but currently sat having a warm drink in a draughty village hall whilst her child chews a replica of a toy they have at home. What a waste of all those skills and qualifications?

@dimsum123 Damned if you do damned if you don't. It's a massive mess and i can't see it getting any better anytime soon. It's scary.

@MyDcAreMarvel

Of course she needs to contribute! That’s what the bursary is for. She needs to give you £30 for food and she will have £50 left for travel , clothes toiletries and socialising which is more than enough.

From the £80 per week she also needs to cover the cost of any books she needs, travel (weekly bus ticket will be £30), she'll be supplying her own notebooks, stationary etc & will buy her own clothes, toiletries etc - the bursary isn't for living costs such as rent & utilities I'm still expected to cover those.

She's a good kid & is aware of the situation so will be happy to help out & if she has a job she'll certainly be expected to contribute but I won't take anything from her bursary as after travel she'll be left with £50 a week for everything else.

I also don't see why my 18yo student DD should be subsidising my employer being able to pay crap wages - if she moved out the decrease in my outgoings would be minimal.

Will this get better though? What is the way out?

I live in a HA house, I work full time but I cannot afford to actually live. I'm frightened for not only my children's future but also my own.

My very good friend is planning on having another baby because her son turns 18 next year and she won't be able to claim anything for him. How sad is that?

But £50 a week is excessive for a 16 year old when you can’t really afford to support her. The reason you lose TC is because the bursary is in lieu of that. She will not be spending much at all in books. Basically you are letting her have £50 a week pocket money while you struggle, that’s not doing her any favours.

Yes completely agree with the OP.

The introduction of UC, however well intentioned, has completely distorted the labour market. It has made benefit claimants out of people who can and are working and that is wrong. How many people have suffered the misery of having their UC messed around and ended up in real financial difficulties as a result - I used to volunteer at a debt and benefits advisory charity and the answer is a lot.

UC does not encourage businesses to value their staff.

I think that the funding used for UC should be switched to support a graded increase in the NMW over a period of a few years ideally with gradual withdrawal of government funding over a period of say ten years. Once at a decent level NMW should be inflation linked. Ultimately, an increase in NMW does encourage people to work more (the stated intention of UC).

Ultimately I'd rather see the funding currently spent on UC to encourage businesses (which I accept is a desirable aim because not everyone can be employed by the state) used to reward businesses for training and retaining people, making pension payments for employees, for meeting flexible working targets and equality and diversity targets and for subsidising costs which stop businesses succeeding, like business rates and advance tax payments. That way you are using the tax system to produce a better world for both employers and employees.