A thread for lower earners to discuss!

[AlexBalex]

AIBU to make a thread for lower earners?

I feel like every thread I read on MN is full of middle to high earners or just posters where it's commonplace for a household to be earning really high amounts like £80k, £100k, £150k.

Now I fully understand the national average is approx. £30k. But does nobody on here and their partner take home minimum wage each resulting in a household income of about £45k?!

In real life I'm surrounded by plenty of 'low earners' but the representation on here seems to be massively skewed the other way.

Where are all the retail staff, hospitality staff, nurses, school teachers etc? Apologies, I don't know the salaries of these roles but they're understood to be below the national average right?

Just wondering if anyone with a not insanely high, lower than average household income (i.e. less than £60k) exists out there?!

Thoughts welcome, was just looking for a discussion really as fed up of reading about 'high earners' all the time .

Good post, OP! Full time self employed single parent here on about 13000 pa. I’ll never be able to own a home, of that I’m sure, and I don’t have a personal pension so as long as I don’t look far into the future I can focus on getting by. I’m on MN for words of wisdom from experienced parents on common parenting issues and SEN advice.

@singlemum93 I think that can be part of the problem in presuming everyone up north is on less money and everyone down south is raking it in .

I've got quite a few friends in midlands and north west- all of whom have family incomes from around £58k to 120k - and lower housing costs too than many of us down south.

The ones I know who struggle a bit are all in single income households earning around £26 to £40k on average.

20k between us.

I'm on 8k pa as p-time due to disability and a child with SEND.
DH is self employed - could be a big wage earner but was in a very stressful IT role and now work fits around various appointments, school meetings etc for DS.

Tax credits due to cease and we won't qualify for UC (too much capital, though its tied up).

As much as we are very frugal, I am dreading this. Was hoping to decorate and put new carpets in next year but I am now thinking this may have to wait...again.

Makes me a little sad as our home really needs a refresh after us being here 6 years (and a rental before that) but we have a roof over our heads and food in the cupboard.

Anyway, yes we are here. There are millions of low earning families.

Noisy and entitled?

Try single parent slogging their way through life, working bloody hard to get where I am, mortgage until age 70, no OH support financial or otherwise. After school clubs. Guilt.

Oh and just over the child benefit bracket now so will have to pay that back whereby my neighbours who earn combined approx 30k more than me but are both just under the threshold get to keep theirs.

Fuck off.

Check out the jobs page on your local authority website or the civil service job page - that is a guide to the wages people have in the real world, between £22k and £35k for non managerial roles, with degrees and experience and all that. Most people I know are on that type of wage and live decent lives with it. We are not in the south east.

Between us we bring in about 70K and the bulk of it is my husband. We met at Uni before we had any real jobs, I was in hospitality and he was in engineering.

Several years down the line we are still in the same industries and even if I was at the very top I would probably be on less than him. I'm now right at the bottom earning minimum wage part time for now whilst the kids are still small. It's really just luck that we bring in what we do, if I had met someone else in hospitality we would be bringing in a lot less!

It frustrates me when low earners are belittled and told they need to be earning more to afford the basics. Why shouldn't a full time minimum wage worker be able to support themselves on their wages? They might not be able to buy a fancy house or a Porsche but some people are struggling to even eat.

If all of the low earners became high earners there would be nothing. My job is to serve people who come in for food and drinks, without people like me nobody would be able to eat or drink out. Employing under 18s mean daytime is out for socialising plus they wouldnt be able to serve alcohol at all, uni students can only work in the holidays and then as soon as they got their real job paying £££ they would be off.

I guess eating out isn't essential so we could do away with me, the receptionists for your leisure centre, your gym, supermarket checkout staff..and be left with..nobody to actually serve others.

Don't believe all you read.
It's a sad thing when people talk about their wages, it's as if that's all they have in their lives. MN is not true reality and is made up of a very middle class demographic which certainly plays a part.

Our household income is about £50k. DH in a professional job in healthcare, I work a few jobs, none of them a profession. We both work PT, partly because until this September we had two in nursery and it was not economically viable to work more than that due to the cost vs our wages. Plus the sheer stress of constant sickness particularly with our youngest, we have nobody to help in those situations, think we'd struggle to hang on to our jobs if we needed even more time off for sick kids. This way there's only 2 days a week we are both at work so it makes juggling that much more manageable. Think we are just about over the cut offs for any help with UC so we just get CB and use TFC. We have a nice enough lifestyle I think but boy have we felt the rising costs with things like energy bills and food shopping, so definitely think more about our leisure spending now and have had to cut back on things.

I know people can lie about their wage. But what really does that achieve.. a few posters saying oh wow that’s great, or what a lier?! I don’t really get it… ?!

Single income household with UC top up 27,500. In the midlands. Don't own a house am renting ha. I'm a sahm as can't afford childcare at moment. Hopefully when ds is older I can work again

You sound lovely! Good luck with your driving lessons!

I’m a single parent.

My income was £26K in 2020 and I now earn £48K.

I will never stop being grateful 🙏

It scares me to think how mortgages & rents have doubled since 2020 - even ‘up north’ and in cheaper areas. How do low income earners afford this?

Where I live a nice 3 bed house in a new build with a garden was £500/£600 per month in 2019 - you’re now talking £1100 at least!

Do benefits make up the difference?

i think you need to go back to the beginning as to how the national average income is calculated.
all income of those over 15 years of age, divided by all family members living under one roof.
so a 100K per year earner, 1 stay at home parent and two children would classify as a household income as 25K per person. when you know darn well that really misrepresents the lifestyle difference the two would have (the family of four vs the single person on 25K).
with many people on mn being parents, it's easy to see how they would say their income is much higher than the national average because you simply don't often think that kids would be included in the income equation.

I have friends and relatives who are teachers. Whilst I appreciate that they work hard for their pay, during all half term holidays they work full time in alternate jobs and get paid from their usual full time job also. So that equates to double the pay for around 3 months in the year? Most professions don’t have the luxury of being able to do that.

£27k. Just me and my son. UC top up is most definitely needed. I work full time.
currently studying in the hope to boost my income but it won’t be much.

Yes!!! I'm with you 💯 I earn £21,000 a year and DP earns £23,000. We are really struggling.

Civil servant, single income, £27k. Manageable, but only just.

Wow! Didn’t realise the difference. Uk you have to get to Upper pay scale 3 before you get towards 47,000- the highest point on the scale without taking senior leadership responsibilities! Usually it would take 10 years here to reach that amount.
Better starting rates than it was. I started on 17,000.

Supervisory role in hospitality, £25k a year which is the top end of what similar roles get in the locality. Single income household.

Most I've ever been paid and I've been in supervisory roles about 10 years between hospitality, retail and care.
I feel quite well off compared to some points in my life. I don't have a mortgage, I do rent from a social housing and it's a bit cheaper than private but it's a bit of a run down, deprived area anyway so not expensive to start with compared to some places.

I am currently partly financially supporting DD at university, she does pretty well on her student finance though.
I've just bought a car though so things may drastically change in the next few months!

Teachers aren’t ‘paid’ for holidays. Their term time pay is shared out equally over 12 months.
I agree pay isn’t bad, but when you work it out per hour it is not great. They are paid for 6.5 hours a day but work far longer so if you split the hourly rate for 6.5 hours a day over 10 hours a day which is more realistic as a minimum day, it’s not great per hour. Although is better than it was!

"I have friends and relatives who are teachers. Whilst I appreciate that they work hard for their pay, during all half term holidays they work full time in alternate jobs and get paid from their usual full time job also.'

Where exactly are they getting these full time jobs that is willing to hire them for a period of a week during a half-term?

And even if this were true, the fact that they feel the need to spend their holidays working in another job shows they clearly aren't well paid. Rich people don't tend to work during holidays.

I'm on less than minimum wage for full time hours as a student in the NHS. In some ways, I feel like if I can make it with so little then the only way is up. At least I know there is progress and in a years time all will be completely different (if I pass!)
There are some anxious moments. At present I am getting a train to a destination four hours away tomorrow for training for two nights and I have zero funds in my bank. No money for a coffee, breakfast or if I lose my bus ticket. I'm taking a tin of beans which I can eat cold if costa or similar won't me use their microwave. But I have survived before and I will survive this.
I'm so used to getting my card declined it doesn't even embarrass me anymore.

I'm on 40k so if I had a partner also on 40k I'd be golden, but I don't. My plusses are that I live in an HA home so rent is affordable (although I am in London so it's on the higher end of SH rents) and my DC are adults and financially self sufficient. I do have enough to cover my expenses. But I have to choose between holidays and having a social life. As I'm an introvert I forgo the social life and have a really good holiday every 12-18 months. I also do spend a bit on my various craft hobbies, the odd takeaway etc.

If I compare myself to the MN high earners then my life is shit! 😂 but honestly I've been a lot poorer in the past so I am thankful for what I have and know that people are struggling on a lot less. Do I have as much as I'd like? No. Do I have "enough"? Yes.

This is a very interesting thread to read thank you very much OP.

Joint income here under £50k in the SE. We are not entitled to any benefits or help and never have been.

Very high mortgage (fixed rate low interest rate for now) but much cheaper than when we used to rent. This is for a small home where we WFH and Mortgaged until we are over 70. Had to go without for 5 years to save for a deposit so no clothes, literally no anything apart from basic food.

House prices are eye watering in this part of the country and our wages do not match even though My DP works in a professional role and we are degree educated.

We are fortunate to have a home of our own but each month is a struggle. We have enough for bills, mortgage, food so in that way we are lucky. We bought a doer upper which we do the DIY for and in between projects we have to just live in it as it is. We drive an old car. We try not to go out as we can’t afford it and we don’t socialise, just a trip to the seaside once a month free parking with a picnic. We usually cannot afford any sort of holiday. We have had one caravan break in the last 2 years cost £100 and to cover that I went without for 5 months.

Now also faced with potential redundancy. Apart from the redundancy woes and ongoing health problems I am not complaining about my life as in the past I have faced a lot of adversity. I have been homeless and a single parent on a council estate, no support network and a victim of DV. I studied and worked really hard to get myself a different future.

When I look around the family housing estate where we live and contemplate we are the ‘poor’ ones. Most of our neighbours have 2-3 kids, all have continuous upgrades to their houses on repeat, change cars every couple of years and have 2-3 vehicles minimum. Many have luxury hobby related items plus 2-3holidays per year. All have very materialistic lifestyles and I have no idea how they can afford it.

I feel grateful and humble for my life, home and garden.

Age is a factor in skewing towards higher wages being discussed here. Lots of parents will be in their 30s/40s and two full time incomes in that bracket are going to be comfortably over the £60k you mention in the OP. Also someone mentioned 15% earning over £50k but it will be more than 15% of those in late 30s/early 40s & that age bracket will be well represented on a parenting site.
Being single vs in a couple makes a huge difference not only due to gross earnings but also down to tax.
You possibly see a lot of posts talking about £100k salaries because of the instant loss of tax free childcare and the phased loss of your personal allowance over that salary. It’s quite contentious because say you had 3 children in full time childcare if you went from £95-105k then of that £10k you’d pay &4k in tax, £200 in NI & then you’d lose £6k of help toward your childcare and pay 40% on an additional £2.5k as you’d lose some personal allowance. Net your £10k payrise could cost you money on your net pay. This is (I think understandably) something high earners feel very unhappy with & you see it posted about a lot.
You’ll similarly see loads of posts about earning over £60k with one income earner and unfairness of no child benefit when 2 earners on 50k each can claim.
For me it’s those plus questions about pensions & private schools where you see lots of comments about earnings. I’m guilty myself of often thinking we are not well off because so many of our peers/family members are super high earners. It’s easy to have a skewed view of normal earnings because of comparison with neighbours/colleagues etc who will typically be in a similar income bracket.