BBC are saying you need a joint salary of 70,000 to avoid poverty

[bridgetjonesmassivepants]

I find this such a high sum. How are most families meant to reach this figure? It doesn't include pension contributions so you would probably need 80,000 by their reckoning.
They are saying that you are in poverty if you can't manage a UK holiday every year and 70 a month on cultural experiences.

I hate stuff like this because it just depends on so much!

How much is housing? Big difference if you’re in Hull or Middlesbrough or Brighton.

How many kids do you have? How old are your kids? Do you need to use paid childcare?

Where are your jobs? What kinds of commuting are involved? What does that cost?

Does anyone have a health condition or disability?

Have you inherited a big sum of money?

The average family or household is a statistical fiction of very limited use.

@Oblomov22 maybe many households have a low standard of living? I would not be surprised if in a few years,50% of households are in a situation where they are choosing between eating or heating and can't afford 50p for a croissant but the other half would be ok..it certainly looks that way to me. DH and our household income is in excess of £70k and we own our flat so spend less than most younger Londoners on housing, but we could definitely use more money. May fall into the bottom half if we don't increase our earnings.

This

That's impressive on just over £1300 a month for everything- rent, bills, council tax, clothes, food, other expenses. Fair play to you. Let's hope it stays fine and comfortable after all of the rises.

Poverty seems to be used too lightly here

We have £56000 a year coming in, south east, we rent a three bed. It’s not enough

Personally I think there's a huge gulf between poverty and being comfortably off ie not worrying about bills or actively making cut backs. For the latter I'd say £70k is probably accurate. We are on a bit more than that and have always lives well within our means ie made compromises on our house so we didn't stretch ourselves financially; and although the rises are not exactly not noticed, we can absorb them without having to make changes. I'd say though that if that's not the case doesn't mean you're in poverty.

Maybe the OP is talking about this- www.minimumincome.org.uk

They have £70 allocated for cultural activities in the calculation. You can adjust the amounts you spend on mortgage/rent etc. I just adjusted it to fit my mortgage of £1020 and the result was £23 k needed in outer London.

*£23k each so combined £46k...

Surely this completely depends upon where you are in terms of house buying? If you bought a house 20+ years ago or are trying to buy one or are renting now? My house sold to my vendors for about 90k in 2003 then to us for 175k in 2008. If I’d bought for 90k in 2003, my payments would have been higher levels of capital so I’d be paid off by now (unlikely as I was only 20!), which makes a huge difference to people’s monthly budget.

Prior to this we’d been renting a flat for £600pcm which with some family help as well (not to be minimised, it has been invaluable) allowed us to save a deposit (£18k) even on smaller salaries than we’re on now. Same flats are now more than double to rent (salaries have not doubled) and would make saving much harder. A house on our street would be more than double our mortgage payments to rent now.

It's not unreasonable to suggest that a family of four in my non-London town might be paying £2.5 just in rent/ mortgage and utilities for a modest house (2k rent, 250 Gas & electricity, 100 council tax, 50 phone & Internet)

Haha we're on about 35k joint income. We go on holiday abroad/weekends away frequently. We eat at restaurants at least once a week. I've lived in poverty, having no bus fare to get to work and no food in the fridge, and this is not it!!!

I've had a hunt round the BBC, but can't find the article. Have you got a link?

Personally, we earn 72k between us, which is then taxed and pension contributions taken. We save a further £500, and put £250 into a private pension fund for me to make up for missing years of being a SAHM ad my current low salary. We are holidaying in the UK at half term but could easily afford to go abroad. We decided to stay local as we didn't know what covid was doing, and booked something most likely to happen.

We DO NOT live in poverty. And it is insulting to those struggling to even hint that we do. There are so many places we could cut expenditure before life became restricted. Indeed, I would say we live without money worries. I know we are very fortunate to do so.

We have a very small income. One full time and one part time on minimum wage.

But we both work flexible jobs locally so save on having no travel or childcare costs.

We live in an area with lots of museums, a library, coast, country parks so our "cultural experiences" cost a packed lunch and a warm coat. We live next to lots of charity shops so we save money there.

We manage a small UK holiday a year and my kids do a sport each.

It's just luck.

Poverty is caused by more than income. Your health, your ability, your location, and just plain luck can means one family might struggle on 70k and another family manages fine on 20k.

Was this on BBC breakfast this morning? There was a lady with long lashes talking about not being able to go to Alton Towers.

She was saying that she would have to reduce her expenditures on food too.

My first thought was that they had got her on on purpose as if to infer she was feckless and was spending her money on tattoos and make up and Alton Towers and too much food.

And so the rest of us who wear sackcloth and wash our faces in puddles to save money would be just fine.

As a single adult household I'd need a decent job to earn 70k a year - management level and above.

@SoggyPaper makes an excellent point. There are a huge number of variables which influence how far your income goes.

Example 1- I know a couple who on the surface have a limited income - she is a TA and he is a delivery driver. Yet they can afford several holidays a year, new cars and expensive hobbies. Due to a substantial inheritance not only are they mortgage free, they also own 1 if not 2 investment holiday properties bringing in rental income.

Example 2 - Another couple both in senior management roles with 2 primary aged children. They have childcare costs after school every day and in the holidays. They often have to take different weeks off in the school holidays (dad week 1, mum week 2) to reduce childcare bill. He has children from a previous marriage so pays maintenance. So whilst he's in his 50s, they have a substantial mortgage (a lot of his savings went to his ex-wife on divorce) and he's trying to save hard for retirement. He also has elderly parents and tries to help them.

@Hawkmother but it's not very useful to anyone to look at a family who bought a house 20 years ago as it's not like we can take a time machine back... My MIL who lives in a similar part of London supports herself and an adult daughter on less than 18k per year and also owns a 3 bed house. For newer younger Londoner incomers, she isn't a good example of how much you need to live! DH and I are a better example, we bought our flat in 2019 and yes we couldn't have done it on less than 70k... In fact for most Londoners without help like free rent, I don't think you can buy anything even in outer boroughs on less than 100k.

Please tell us how! My household income is higher but we live in a terraced house, don’t have a car, don’t manage to go abroad every year and theatre trips are few and far between, sadly. And savings are pretty minimal too. I’d love to know how you manage this.

I was just watching that, too. I found the lady's sense of entitlement to luxury items somewhat baffling. Obviously, if she's a single parent on a lowish income, she won't be able to afford to splash out very often, if at all. Trips to Alton Towers would be out of the question, surely?

I confess that I did notice all the make-up and the eyelashes and thought that savings could easily be made by forgoing those.

apparently as a single parent, I need to earn much less than £70k for a decent standard of living on that. Why does a 2 adult household need nearly double?

Rubbish. We're on wayyyyyy less than that in London, we are NOT poor

These kinds of figures are really insulting to people living in actual poverty

Really interested in why you struggle, and as it’s an anonymous forum I’ll ask - you can ignore if you find it rude!
Do you have an unusual outgoing - family member supported abroad, specialist medical care for a child, historic debt, some reason why your mortgage is unusually high?

Also, the DWP don’t think that £37k is enough to live on as a single mother with a baby in nursery (while you earn your £37k - because where else is it coming from?) and a teenager. You qualify for universal credit to make things less tight because of the childcare costs.

its not like UC is designed to be generous!

We ear around 60k pay bills, have a few treats (soft play, trip to seaside, occasional night out) and possible a holiday (but not every year) but there's nothing left. We can't afford newer cars, up to date phones, iPad, to decorate.

Link please OP?

@Catabogus you asked how people are comfortable on this sort of income - in our case, it's because we've managed to mitigate most of our big outgoings. We own our home outright (a combination of inheritance and saving hard), between DH and I we work full time, so that means we don't need to pay for childcare for DC. We both cycle to work, which makes for a cheap commute. I suspect that you're paying a lot more than that for at least a couple, possibly all of those - for example, a season ticket to London would be over £6k for one of us, definitely enough for a couple of nice holidays.

The real question is disposable income, after housing, bills, childcare and commuting. But it's not as simple as 'families need £70k/year to avoid poverty'.