So many consider themselves underpaid, where does this leave our society?

[Reluctantadult]

Didn't know whether to put this in politics or cost of living, but suspect this gets more traffic at the mo. Just musing that so many people think they're under paid now. Where does this leave us as a society? Groups that are considering striking or pre-strike action, that I have read of or know of myself: railway workers, train drivers, nurses, teachers, barristers, bus drivers, baggage handlers, paramedics, bin men, BT engineers, postal workers, the Environment Agency, Natural England...

See the thing is that in RL the nursing/teaching /SW staff I work with and know are most definitely not using food banks. In fact most if not all have had at least one overseas holiday this year.
The problem for many I suspect is high cost of accommodation and living out with their means.
Just out of interest as a specialist nurse with 32 years experience I earn £9000 less per year that my teaching equivalent friend.
it’s the Police service I feel sorry for.

Police earn more than you and they retire earlier. Of course I think they should be paid more but they’re not on less good terms than you as a nurse.

You personally may not know nurses using food banks but I do. In fact our hospital has set one up, they are also providing fruit and veg collections for staff and have sent round a list of organisations to provide help with poverty. This is unheard of!

This is not because people are profligate, prioritising holidays but because they’re trying to exist in London with increases in rent, mortgage, travel, childcare, energy, food that have risen far beyond hat their salaries cover. Remember nurses have had a 20% real terms pay cut in the last decade. No one wants to be a nurse, large falls in applications to the degree, people leaving in droves, 47,500 vacancies, etc. Something needs to be done about pay to attract people to do it.

I've never met anybody who confessed they were overpaid.

The min wage was only introduced in 1999 at 3.60 an hour, it definitely wouldn’t support a family with stay at home mum

I would like to see a law passed that meant the highest paid employees in companies could earn no more than 3 times the lowest paid employee.

I work in an industry where bosses are taking home wages of £150-200k + and happily paying employees a smidge above NMW.

They then donate £5k to charity at Christmas time and put it all over their social media to make sure everyone knows how generous they are. It isn't right.

I'm an accountant so in an industry that is traditionally very well paid. The grad scheme I started on put up the starting salary by £5k last year - it had been at the same salary for two decades. What's happened in teaching and nursing is worse because the salaries were so much lower to begin with, plus they're now responsible for paying their own training costs!

What should be the base level of living standards has now become something that is seen as aspirational and only available to those in well paid jobs. It's bullshit. We can comfortably afford a semi detached home that is smaller than my parents - my Dad left school at 15, my mum at 18. Where does that leave the many people in worse paid jobs than us? Stuck in grotty rented flats or choosing between defaulting on the mortgage or paying the electricity bill.

The issue is that many businesses rely on government to supplement low wages they pay, with things like UC, instead of paying properly. These businesses then trouser the cash in the form of additional profit.

Companies have seen a HUGE rise in profits over the last couple of years, which coincides exactly with inflation. Mmm fishy isn't it?

I give you Amazon as an example. Profits up hugely (but growth going down). Oh and they have paid zero tax on that, pay their workers badly and on zero hours contracts.

Companies should pay their people properly and pay tax properly. Corporation tax gives only 2%of tax receipts in this country vs personal taxes which is nearly 10%. So individuals are shelling out more of their hard earned than the companies are. Substantially more, with low earners losing up to HALF a their pay of tax, vs the highest earners who lose single digits.

Public services should be funded properly so our public sector workers can be paid properly too. This country has a LOT of wealth , it's just concentrated in the bank accounts of the rich, "Wealth is unevenly distributed between individuals in Great Britain, with the wealthiest 10% estimated to hold around half of all wealth, primarily in the form of private pensions and property." Says the Office of National Statistics.

Rant over.

I don't blame any of those groups for feeling underpaid. We've had over a decade of wage stagnation, primarily caused by ideologically driven austerity. Our public services are crumbling because of it, and food bank use has skyrocketed. Yet CEO pay continues to grow...
I'm surprised its taken this long for people to crack tbh.

People are sick of the erosion of living standards too. DH both work full time in well paid careers, but we couldn't even dream of being able to afford a house the same value as my PIL's.

^ DH and I both work....

It's not just about being underpaid because of increasing inflation and cost of living.

It's also about taking on more and more responsibility as new legislation comes in or SLT think of new inititives but don't factor in time to implement them, as colleagues leave and taking up their workload as they aren't replaced

I was in a meeting with our new Assistant Principal and Senco last week she's on wellover £50k, the TAs (some who have been there 20+ years) were commenting they couldn't fulfill their intervention responsibility as they were being taken to cover classes up to 5 a day sometimes, these TAs don't take home more than £1100 a month and were told by the Sendco, "Well I've covered lessons too, if you can't support the school maybe it's time to move elsewhere". As if doing a job youre not trained or paid for is even similar to a senior teacher covering a lesson or two. Management and treatment of staff in schools is not good in many places and moral is low similar to the other striking public services I expect.

Lots of people are definitely underpaid, especially if earning less than £20,000 a year, but some think they are, but it's self inflicted, my mum for example earns £89,000 but is moaning that she's skint, she has 2 cars, lives in a house way to big, shops in Waitrose and spends way too much on electronics and owes thousands on credit. She actually thinks I'm better off financially because I'm on UC ( I'm not by a large margin). All she has to do, is downsize and cut spending but she won't due to pride. Like a previous poster said their is difference between underpaid and overstretched. Some can't tell the difference.

But company profits are either reinvested for growth or distributed to shareholders who then pay personal tax on the dividends so just comparing corporation tax to personal tax is meaningless, you need to add in the tax on dividends to the corporation tax figures to get a true comparison.

I’m a teacher at the top of the pay scale. I’m not broke by any stretch of the imagination.

However, looking at friends and relatives in the private sector who earn 2-4 times more than what I do, my wages seem unfair in comparison. I will attend three unpaid evening events between now and Christmas. I run two additional after school clubs a week, unpaid. I regularly work through my lunch break. Every year, I take my class on a residential, during this time, I take one TA (and there are camp staff on site) however, the care of 30 children falls wholly to me, 24/7 from the Monday until Friday. This includes giving medication, making sure they all eat, sleep, wash and are having a good time and getting the most out of their experience. I will not be paid extra for this. In my spare time, I study trauma, behaviour, special needs and teaching and learning. I’ve learned to clean and change feeding tubes, give insulin and epi pens. I give my upmost to my job, why shouldn’t I be paid in line with inflation? The politicians have been.

DH is employed in the private sector. He can choose to work from home. He gets paid work nights out, free tea and coffee, bonuses, healthcare, gym, home office equipment bought for him, etc. etc. I get none of these perks. I have to spend money if I want to have acceptable resources to teach my lessons. I buy things for children that don’t have what they need.

Honestly, compared to the poverty that I see in my classroom, I have a bloody privileged standard of living (mostly because DH gets paid so well, some of my colleagues have it much harder). But it irks me that politicians get so much more when they are a making such a mess of this country. It’s the inequality that is making people angry. Nurses risked their lives on shite pay during covid, whilst the cabinet had lavish, ‘illegal’, paid for, parties. Politicians and decision makers are just taking the proverbial out of hard working public sector workers and we’ve had enough.

It’s not always a case of private sector being better though, virtually all zero hours contracts are in the private sector, private sector offen only get ssp for sickness, pension is the bare minimum on auto enrolment, basic smp. Your husband sounds like he has a decent job with perks but that is not “private sector” as a whole

This is why I had a massive problem with minimum wage increases. The minimum wage now is ridiculously high and it causes more problems than it solves.

What does make sense is a properly organized and fair redistribution of income. Someone who is a nurse or carer shouldn’t be using a food bank. It shouldn’t work out that a parent is financially better off not working.

The other thing that most people don’t realize is that senior leadership don’t make that much in the UK. It’s the owners who make the money and they pay capital gains, not ordinary income tax on the profits. This is the biggest problem with the redistribution of income.

I work for a bank, I make a very high income and work extremely hard. What I do has massive value for society. Basically I am part of a process that enables people to borrow money to buy a home. I’m well paid but why I am paying so much in taxes when I have such high childcare costs, I have to pay school fees because my children have autism, another dyslexia, and I can’t get them the help in the state schools? It’s not equitable compared to a family making the same income with a SAHM, 3 children in state school with no fees, no healthcare costs beyond the basics. If I was a business owner I’d be paying 25% less in taxes. How is that fair?

But this poster is in a graduate profession and compared with private sector professions is underpaid. There is no point comparing her with zero hour contract employees, who are mostly not in graduate professions.

I forgot to mention zero contract hours. It’s a complete failure of our society that such contracts are allowed to exist. It’s morally reprehensible that someone is hired with no idea if they will earn enough to feed themselves. I would love to pay my childcare more. They deserve it. While paid hourly they get a weekly minimum because that’s the least I can do to enable them to plan accordingly. I’m paying them for being available and that in itself has value. It’s also a basic ingredient to a relationship based on respect. Respect and value that one feels go hand in hand.

I'm not underpaid. My union is on strike for pension related reasons (probably, I'm not following well). I support right to strike, though it really is screwing up my Christmas plans at this rate (sigh).

Govt wants lid on inflation, is that the main reason the public sector employers can't offer more? I think yes. What is wage inflation like in private sector right now?

There is a place for zero hours contracts, where they are wrong is that the flexibility is often entirely one sided and the employee is expected to be available at the drop of a hat to do any amount of hours so can’t for example take on other work as they will then not be available.

The system needs a proper adjustment left, right and centre! It has for a long time. But every time things get tough, the tories pass the hot potatoe to the next idiot to take the PM chair. And we keep voting for them...... I am really lost about the reasons......
I do not know much about economy, but earlier in the year, when Boris was still PM and the price of fuel was going crazy, I thought "or.... the goverment will have a tough time sitting down with business and bankers to discuss reducing their margins of profits.... because I did not see any other way to control inflation than keeping a control on the prices of goods, as unfortunately we do not have much say on the price of fuel. Will BJ have the guts to do so?" I doubted it. Then he left. Then we were in limbo. Then the lettuce competitor left a massice hole in our struggling finances, with the brilliant ideas, and failing to talk plans through with market experts and the BoE. I mean! It is mindblogging.
I am not surprised people are at the end of their tether and striking. I do feel exactly the same and I have reasons to complain against the goverment (not my employer, I am very lucky there and I will carry on with my job while I can)
But I am scared about what the future will bring. If wages are increased, then prices will keep climbing up? And inflation become even worst? That is, if companies and finantial services do not adjust their profits, so they get less money and less bonuses. But.... this goverment, they have proved to me that they do not care and have no intention to move a finger to protect citizens.
So, here we are, 2008 crisis, we had to pay. I really personally suffered on that one, I just had my child then. We had to bail the banks out...
Back to 2022, again taxpayer will pay for everything... to the point of having no food, no heating, no money for any fun, constant estress. And also, risk of not being able to get to work, delayes on deliveries, no access to medical care.....
I really hope the opposition has what is needed to change this. It will be a nightmare, trying to take back power from markets and banks, to revert this..

If you cannot afford your bills comfortably, you are underpaid. If you have no option but to feed your children and go hungry yourself, you’re underpaid.

I disagree to some extent.

Everyone should be getting a fair wage for the job they do. But there has to be a degree of cutting your cloth according to your means too.

Lower paid jobs aren't necessarily "underpaid". Lots of people choose lower paid jobs because they don't want responsibility (I am one of them). That doesn't mean they are underpaid.

Outside of finance and tech the salaries are awful in the U.K. I earn twice as much as I did in the U.K. since moving away, doing the same job. The rent is higher here but childcare and transportation is a fraction. Taxes are similar, but you can claim back a lot more. My DH is in finance and now earns a bit less than he did.

Essentially if you work and you can't afford a basic standard of living then yes you are underpaid.
If b&m or Poundland or Amazon etc can't afford to pay their workers a liveable wage (without them having to go to the government to top it up) then they have no business running a business that size.
There is a real problem with the distribution of wealth in this country and being quiet about it isn't the way forward.

As they are all public sector jobs, won’t we all just have tax increases to pay for the pay rises. Also won’t large scale wage increases just push up inflation? I think it would be better to try to reduce housing, energy and food costs.