£6.19 AN HOUR DOESN’T GO FAR IN 2012, GRADUATES TELL US
It’s been dubbed the ‘poverty wage’ because it is so grim to live on – yet new figures show that millions of people in the UK are only earning the national minimum wage. At present, it stands at a meagre £6.19 an hour for over 21s – that’s less than £50 for an eight-hour day (£247 per week or £990 per month). For those aged 18-20 it’s an even measlier £4.68 – and for under 18s it’s just £3.68.
But campaigners believe that a far higher amount – known as the ‘living wage’ is a much truer estimate of the sum needed to allow workers to provide themselves with the “basis of a decent life”. Last week, revised figures were released: £8.55 an hour in London and £7.55 in the rest of the UK (both up by 25p). Labour leader Ed Miliband and his brother David – as well as London Mayor Boris Johnson – have backed calls for this to be made the new norm among responsible employers. It seems to make sense for the taxpayer too. The Institute of Fiscal Studies has calculated that for every person moved on to the living wage, the saving to the Treasury would be about £1,000 a year.
We regularly hear from graduates who are barely scraping by – and some of your stories are shocking. Many of you tell us you are doing unpaid or very low-paid work, often on short-term or so-called zero-hours contracts. Some of you do extra freelance work on the side (often cash-in-hand). You worry about paying of your student debt – and can’t even think about saving to buy a house or start a family. Of those of you claiming benefits or taking hand-outs from your parents, almost all of you say you hate it.
So what do you think – is it time employers get real, put their hands in their pockets and pay their workers a wage they can actually live off, without needing to rely on hand-outs from the state or their parents? Or are low wages simply the result of too many unemployed people and not enough jobs? If you are living on less then the living wage, how do you manage to make ends meet?
it is all about supply and demand because there is more potential employees than jobs, companies know that they can get away with paying NMW, the living wage is a excellent idea but people need to get into there heads that by asking for a living wage means that there will be some to take your place on NMW because they will be grateful for a job.
Harsh but true
I’ve been selling my services to men for extra money. No, I’m not even joking…
If I lived in London, hell no.
If I lived in pretty much any other city (except maybe Bristol/Bath), yes and easily.
I do think companies should have to pay the living wage-but then again if some small businesses can’t afford to maybe they won’t employ someone full stop, stopping someone earning a bit and stopping their business growing. It’s a difficult one. Morally I think yes but economically and realistically I’m not so sure.
Although that was also the reason people gave for not bringing in the minimum wage in the first place and shocker, there was no sudden bump in unemployment.
The cost of living is too high. If the cost of living was lower then you’d be fine on low wages.
As a freelance journalist in my second year, I barely earn more than £50 per day from my regular web content writing, although it does get bumped up now and then by the occasional published article, but I would rather be doing this than on benefits, cleaning or shelf stacking. Effectively though, many of those graduating since 2008 when I left uni, as a mature grad that is, have largely been dumped….
Living and working in Birmingham, I lived on a few pence above the previous minimum wage(full time) fairly comfortably, renting a room that luckily included bills and council tax, and having enough left left over for socialising. I didn’t save in any meaningful way, but I suspect a lot of that has to do with discipline, given the same applies now I’m paid a bit more due to the Temporary Workers Regulations.
If I lived in London, no I couldn’t. Rent and the tube would probably be nearly all, or more of the wage. Even if I lived at my Mum’s 50 miles away in Hampshire rent-free, the train at peak times would eat up too much of the wage. Even commuting to the two nearest cities by train (Portsmouth or Guildford, 20 miles) would be almost the cost of my rent in Brum plus local travel.
Also, if I commuted outside of the West Midlands county when I was on minimum wage, or paid rent outside of a large city and had to run a car or pay peak train fares to get to work I’d have struggled on minimum wage (and still would now).
TBQH the minimum wage life is purely a London problem. If you are single and sharing accomodation and able to find full time employment in pretty much any city north of the watford gap you shouldn’t have a problem. I’d kill someone to get enough consecutive days/weeks/months of work to clear my overdraft so that i can go back to manchester. I’d easily be able to be independent there on a shopworker/bar staff salary.
@Jacob: I’d argue it’s also a rural/urban thing – i.e. the cost you have to pay to get to work (i.e. how near to where you happen to live you’ve managed to find a work), and whether you need to run a car on your wage (or pay hundreds a month in peak train fares if you’re lucky enough to live near a station).
Running a car AND paying rent simultaneously would be quite difficult on NMW (I know of low-paid people who live with their parents who often do one or the other, but often not both), but is either virtually required or makes things much easier if you find yourself living in some parts of the country.
Living in Birmingham and working a few miles away in the city centre, my travel is only £54 a month (a bus pass covering the whole of Birmingham, the Black Country and Coventry).
Living at my Mum’s, unless I got a shop job in the village or a shop job (or job on the industrial estate or one of the scarce office jobs) in the nearest market town (c £10 a week on the train, or 30′ by bike), I’d have a choice between £200+ a month on the train to travel 20 miles the nearest cities (which would limit where I work to certain places) or running a car. If I paid my Mum even a nominal board, something like 80%+ would be going on board+travel on NMW (leaving practicably nothing for socialising or savings), compared to 40-50% living in Brum – a massive difference.
It’s disgusting..I’m looking to emigrate again after being back in the UK 10 years for people with severe disabilities just to keep a roof over my head! I resent having to work 22/7 for this yet we’re not paid even half the minimum wage. Now the government are cutting down on this work..in my position it means no work=living on the street.I have to sofa surf on any little time off I decide to take very ocassionally which at 47 years of age and a working person all my life is completely unacceptable and not fair on the few mates I have here! If I took a 40 hour week and lived out then I would not even be able to cover my basics. When I hear friends from other European countries and the help their governments subsidize them if they’re on a low wage this country infuriates me. I can’t blame people staying on benefits to be honest. Looking to get out again ASAP! This country can just rot….. having homelessness/living on the street hovering over my head for the last 10 years is stressful to say the least! I’VE SERIOUSLY HAD ENOUGH OF THIS SHIT!
I live in London and I use to earn NMW and after paying rent, c-tax tv licence and bills, I was only afford to eat once a day…..It was so hard that I got in to a depression and many times I wanted to end with my life as I found myself not living but existing.
Today, I attended a job interview for an admin role. At the end I asked what the wage was and other benefits. The interviewer lookedme straight in the eye and told me £6.19 per hour and he didn’t flinch or apologize. No doubt the assumption is that anyone who has applied for the job must be happy with minimum wage, since it was on the job advert. A Jobcentre advisor told me that ‘Meets National Minimum Wage’ canmean above NMW.
There was no talks of yearly increment, so presumably the wage will increase in line with.the NMW. You.are.expected.to give a.lot for that too. Working Tax Credit boosts my wage by.about an extra pound per hour. But, I’m taking a.pay cut since my previous hourly rate was £6.50. But often an employer dismisses me after 3-6 months and I’m unemployed for most of the year. Any job I get does not make up for the previous loss of earnings. Working Tax Credit has allowed me in my last job to make meagre savings, but about 30% has been eaten up by day-to-day living. I have never been able to afford to make regular contributions to a private pension, fora foreign holiday, private health care scheme, a car, a mortgage – all those things that many people take for granted. I am poor on the dole and I am poor when I have a job. Work does not pay for me.
I agree with Matthew. It is all about supply and demand. We get paid based on how easy it is to replace you. For example, if you are a doctor, dentist, or surgeon you can expect to have a good wage and standard of living because your skill is rare. On the other hand, if you are a receptionist than your pay will be lower.
Do you even wonder how it only took one man in the 1950s — 1960s earning minimum wage was able to buy a home and have kids? Nowadays, the Man & Woman both have to work two professional jobs in order to just get a down payment on a house. What’s sad is nowadays even if you graduate you have been lucky in order to get a job that will pay above the minimum wage!!! You shouldn’t have to get lucky in order for the system to serve its God dam purpose. All you want is to have a system that will give you the opportunity to have a full-time job with decent pay to provide for yourself and family.
This is why I hate talking to old people (especially politicians) as they are completely clueless about our generation? Let me be clear the British government will not offer a living wage for two reasons: (1) The higher you raise the minimum wage the more unemployment you get. This is basic economics which sucks to be honest.(2)The United Kingdom has a current debt to GDP ratio of 90.7% which means the British government is bankrupt and unable to meet its financial obligations. In other words, the British government is going to default and be the next Greece.
Sorry about the long comment but the bristish government is starting to make me upset because they are not looking out for your generation.
@Chris Wells: Our currency can devalue (possibly substantially if confidence dried up – in which case much of the Western-dominated fiat currency system would likely go down with it) but we can’t default or go bankrupt on most of our debts unless we choose too, because they are mostly in sterling and unlike Greece we control the creation of our own currency.
@Alex W: Everyday I wake up wondering what the world is goiing to look like in ten years time. What annoys me the most is that I know why this is happening and who is doing it. But no matter what I do I can’t stop it from happening. We live in a system where the reserve banks print money out of thin air causing every person to work harder and take on more debt in order to keep up with inflation. I am starting realise that it is mordern day corporate slavery. What hurts me the most is that the majority of people are completely oblivious to it and are going to get slaughter. Let be clear Japan, America, and the UK currencies are going to collapse to carve a way for the New World Order:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO24XmP1c5E
I just completed a weeks trial for a new job. I was called into the office and told they would like to take me on permanently. Great news.
I have never been unemployed and have always done well in all my previous employments, so me being soooooo please at being offered the opportunity of getting this job (Actions speak louder than words) I made the mistake of not asking about the hourly rate. Having done this kind of work before I thought i had a good idea of the rates to expect.
Wrong…..when I did finally ask about pay, the employer read my face before I even said anything. Yep £6.31 per hour.
My previous lowest rate for this kind of work was £7.50ph and this was from a smaller and less well known employer.
Well after taking some time out to clear my thought and do a little math, I returned to give my answer…No thank you!(the first time I have ever turned down a job)
I then went on to explain that I just could not live on that amount of money, and after I had payed out for the “got to pays” each month, I would be left with just over £64 pounds a week for everything else. This for a 49 hour week and that people on benefits get £71 per week. The benefits thing touched a never…..they had obviously heard this many times before.
I live as cheaply as possible…..shared accommodation etc.
£6.31 per hour =
High staff turn over
Absenteeism
Low productivity
Theft
No respect for the business or employer and place of employment……..when will employers learn that many of the problems they experience within the work place are due to low pay and by paying a little more they would save money in the end.
Rant over…
@JB up north
as a person from merseyside, who works in london, i would love to come back up north for an IT job, but they are very few around, and if there is they want 16k for someone with 5-10 years exp, less money than what i am on in london.
i think you should of took the job, as it being such a low wage you can apply for things like council tax benefit, housing benefit and working tax credits
matthew
A Person in full time work shouldn’t need benefits. All jobs should be paying people enough to live on.