Is it true that job seekers will have to be willing to travel 1 1/2 hours to work and back for minimum wage?

[ipadquietly]

DM link, so wondered if this was exaggerated:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2283162/Commute-hours-day-lose-benefits-jobseekers-told-tough-new-Universal-Credit-plan.html

If true
Don't they realise how much travel costs these days?????

Mind you if you are the employee commuting an hour and a half each way plus job you are not going to have much free time for job hunting.

Funnily enough when I lived in London I had a 2 hour journey there and 2 hours back, bus two tubes, overground then another bus and the same going back.
BUT I earned megabucks and willingly did it. But no-one on Min wage could afford to do that it was £44 per week FFS and that was 4 years ago so the fares are prob higher now

That amount of buses and trains in Glasgow would cost way more than £44 a week! A single journey fare on the bus is £1.85 alone then £2.50 for a return on the tube.

It's already what's happening for many many workers,mi don't see the problem.

As has been said, it's unlikely to happen for minimum wage jobs anyway, because employers will be wary of choosing to employ someone who lives so far away.

well, I've just calculated that a 90 minute commute from home gets me to somewhere in London (max 40 minutes travelling from Victoria), and I'd need to wrok for 12 hours at minimum wage to pay for that (assuming no tax or NI paid; obviously it's more hours if you take that into account).

If I went south rather than into London, I could get to Brighton in the 90 minutes, but I'd need to work 15.5 hours to pay for my weekly travel.

If we're talking about commuting to Edinburgh, Newcastle upon Tyne just about falls within the 90 minutes travelling time (far more than 50 miles though), so long as you get the train (often 89 mins). It is Not Cheap though, even getting the totally inflexible advance tickets. You couldn't pay £18-£58 (because that's how much it will cost if you are given little notice of shifts etc) on NMW.

That's £18-£58 a day, btw.

I guess you could go for a season ticket at £6,744 a year instead though. That'd be more than half your annual wage though.

lots of people in London travel 90 mins for min wage? I used to travel 90mins for my 12k admin job, all those people who work in toilets and clean and work in macdonalds and retail etc they all travel in from outskirts?

I live in Brighton and a lot of my friends work in London which is about the 1.5 hrs mentioned .None do minimum wage jobs quite the reverse for some of them but they all struggle with the fares!

Given I live in the middle of nowhere and have to have a car to work any where, you are talking £16 a day fuel and £22 a day plus if you factor in insurance, rd. tax servicing, tyres etc.

My DDad always said running a car was double the petrol.
I'm guessing that isn't quite true as fuel price inflation has been so stupid in recent years.

Thus a bit of button pressing gives over 40% of your gross salary for an eight hour day to travel.

I'm a very long term SAHM I have no idea what nat. Insurance and tax takes, but I strongly suspect the amount you'd be left with would not be worth getting out of bed!

Add in the three hours extra childcare costs for a lot of people
As well as finding the childcare that will have them for such a long day.

DH has a huge petrol bill, but he is well paid and it's 8% of his gross pay not 40%

I'd forgotten child care which would mean on those figures I had £0.00 pence and probably would mean it would cost me money to drive to a minimum wage job 50 miles away.

My travel costs are £19 a day and I earn just a little over NMW.

I have to work 16 hours a week just to cover travel.

I don't know why people are getting their knickers in a twist. You attend the interview and make damm sure you don't get the job.

Under these circumstances (high travel costs, extended childcare needed) who would sit there and present themselves in a way that makes them employable?

Surely you would just attend so you can show you have been trying to look for work?

Victor - WTAF? And so, those of us who do travel a long way to work, and do work hard have to pay for someone to DELIBERATELY fail to get a job!

Victor.

Totally agree, its hardly an incentive to get a job is it?

Roseformeplease.

I suggest you go to your place of work, tell your boss you will pay them for the privilege of your job*.
There are those that won't work because they don't want to. There are others who don't work because it is not economically viable.

It was the same when I was on the dole in 1990 shows age but why assume it is 1.5 hours by bus or car? On foot, 1.5 hours is about 6 miles, if you can't afford a car or bus fares (or there is no bus) you can't be forced to travel further surely?

I used to commute for just over an hour in rush hour, and I hated every second of it. It cost a fortune, I had to put dd in a nursery closer to work as I wouldn't be back in time for standard nursery times, so had to do the commute with a 6 month old.
It cost a fortune and that was 14 years ago and even though I did get paid above what is NMW now I hated every single second of it.

So I found a job closer to home.

I can't believe people are expected to pay ridiculous travel costs and extended childcare for what barely amounts to a living wage without factoring in that extra costs.

I saw a programme a year or so ago where a man said he writes down his membership of the BNP party on every application form to ensure he never gains employment.

Those are the people that never want to work.

I was refering to the people that couldn't work that far from home as it would mean actually 'paying' to work. Which is a ridicoulous notion unless you are climbing the career ladder- and then it's an investment in your future so hardly comaprable to a dead end NMW wage.