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?

www.theguardian.com/business/2019/nov/02/samantha-cameron-under-fire-as-fashion-label-breaches-employment-rules?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Tweet

I seriously get this. We struggle, though I do have to work part time due to my disability. Our rent takes up 60% of my husband's income, mine pays for council tax (up almost 8% again this year), food and other essential bills like electric and gas. Our savings have slowly been eaten up when things have broken or I had to go off on long term sick due to a bad flare.

There are no better paying jobs in this area, I earn the maximum you can get around here. We can't afford to relocate as don't have all the money up front. I can't work anymore, my husband has been applying for better paid jobs for a year or more now when they do come up, which isn't often. Council waiting lists here are 10 years plus and would be more for me as I can't move anywhere with stairs and ground floor flats are rare.

There comes a point when there is nothing left to cut back and cost of living still goes up all the time where wages don't. In fact, due to brexit it is quite possible that my husband may well be made redundant soon

YANBU, myself and DH both work and our wages cover bills and essentials but there is no way we could get by on only one salary.

When discussing with my parents, their view is that it was better years ago mainly because housing was more affordable, they bought a house and got a mortgage based on my Dad’s salary and his salary paid the mortgage, bills and essentials, he was on an average salary but that was the norm then.

The main issue is housing costs and other costs of living that mean to get by in a situation with children requires a double income.

Eg in the op two of them earning the same wage would only still need two bedrooms, bills would be similar apart from food who would be slightly higher.

Therefore rent would be 25% of income not 50% and would be sustainable

I don’t disagree with you op. I think two things have happened

1. Wages have stagnated, living costs and housing have rocketed (and inequality has grown hugely) and

1. Peoples expectations of a “normal life” have changed.

My FIL was not a clever or qualified man. He was a postie, and TBH that’s pretty much what he was capable of. Yet despite being pretty far down the earning ladder, he was able to buy a nice 3-bed semi in a very nice area, support a non-working wife and two children, run a car, go on holiday etc. I can imagine many postmen being able to do that these days.

But the flip side is that they lived an very simple and cheap life. Second hand and hand me down furniture. Taking the bus to do the shopping. Shopping daily, little and often and very few treats - homemade cake was about as exciting as it got. Holidays were static caravans in Devon or B&B in Scarborough for s week. Children were expected to leave school at 16 and get a job. Cheap meats (liver was a regular) and lots of soup to eat, and every scrap kept and eaten. Heating only in when it was really needed, big jumpers the rest of the time.

Few people in the UK would choose to live like this or consider it “normal” But tbh given the cost of housing relative to wages, it’s academic.