Opinions please - my son's paper round - is this a fair wage?

angel13

Sorry I dont know for sure about rates of pay. my son is now 16 and his friends are still 15 and in spring he helped his friend repeatedly with a free paper round. it took his friend over 3 nights so my son would tag along sometimes to help him out. friend was getting £20 for this but it must have been a huge round as it took 3 solid nights for him to deliver and he split the £20 with another friend who got them all folded at home.

as for paper rounds i used to do them (im a girl). i did the free papers for a while but it was a long trek from where i lived. my younger sister did morning paper rounds for about 3-4 years i think. its good for youngsters to be out and earning as i am now 35 and i have worked since i was 13 - started off babysitting and went from there so anything to earn some cash. my son is 16 and yet to do this sort of thing as hesin final year and i am trying to get him to concentrate on his exams as they are far more important. i am setting up my own business so when first lot of stock arrived he spent 3 hours helping me unload and sort and work out pricing so he earned £10 phone credit from me. but we are on a limited income so i cant just pay him to do the chores etc as he has a chore list which he is expected to do without pocket money each day - we use lovefim for films and games so thats the perk instead as he gets games he wants without us having to fork out for them.

Dave101t

only 7 years ago i did a round, was 20 papers for about 10 quid. i thought that was crap so what did i do? i took 2 rounds, earned twice as much. i put up and shut up (until winter when i quit, i was then offered 40 quid per week but told not to tell anyone) tell your son to get good, then hold him to ransom!

SueC_2

I have no idea what the current going rate is, and it was such a long long time ago that I did my paper round that, even if I could remember what I was paid, it would be utterly irrelevant. Probably half a shilling or something! (Joke - I'm not actually quite that old)!

What I do remember though was that a 'paper round' was a 'paper round' - I had my route and was paid a set amount to deliver however many papers needed delivering along the way. Some days there were more than others, some days they were heavier than others. Sundays, with all the supplements, were a nightmare. There was no sick pay, no holiday pay, no benefits of any kind.

Despite all that, it was damn good discipline and got me, at an early and susceptible age, into the habit of getting out of bed every day and earning money, regardless of how cold it was, how wet it was, how tired I was or any other variables. It taught me about income and expenditure, and how you have to earn money in order to be able to spend it.

It also taught me valuable lessons (again at an age when learning is easy) in how to have a good relationship with your employer and customers, and 'maximising' those relationships.

Top Tip Number One that I remember was how effective putting a Christmas card through all of my customers' letterboxes was in getting me a nice fat Christmas tip.

Top Tip Number Two: be reliable, friendly and hardworking, and when any other paper rounders go on holiday, you'll be the one asked to cover their rounds, and then you do earn extra money.

OP - Please, teach your son the positives of employment, not the negatives!

reech

Yes - there's no legally defined minimum wage (min wage tier one is for people aged 16-17) so the agent is free to pay whatever he\she wants; this is why newspaper shops generally advertise for under 15s

I honestly can't remember what I got when I was doing it, but it was very useful (if a small amount!) to buy several computer magazines, and if I'd saved for a couple of weeks, a computer game for me ancient black and white gameboy!

If I was to equate that to 'todays' life' an average computer game costs £30, so I'd think that around £15 a week would be a fair amount; after two weeks of work the chap would have enough for a DS game.

Kids shouldn't go into work 'expecting a handout' - hard work should be a reward that may be accompanied by salary. I'd prefer to tell him to drop the job if it isn't 'paying enough', work hard at school, then college, then possibly Uni, and get a decent job at the end; he should enjoy not working while he can

KiKi

I used to deliver 150 papers and only got £6! I had to add in 4 or 5 leaflets every time, too, to every paper. And that was only 15 years ago! Took me an hour.

OP - I'll give you a serious answer on this one. The 15 minutes it takes him to get there and back doesn't count. No-one gets paid to travel to their place of work.

So he gets £10 a week for 102 deliveries? That seems fair to me. More than, actually. If they put in a few extra papers now and then, I don't think it's grounds for complaint.

If they ask him to deliver 37 for 5 or 6 weeks, then yes, I'd be asking if he will be paid more. But doing a little bit extra never hurts anyone for a while, and it shows willing on his part - good practice for being in the real world once he's working as an adult!

See how they go for a few weeks, then make up your mind, but make sure your son is happy first if you choose to make a complaint.

HTH.
KiKi

aliasojo

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

I don't think you should include the time it takes him to get to and from 'work' in your calculations, personally.

Actually, I don't agree.

I wouldn't include the time taken to get from home to newsagent but as soon as papers are picked up, the clock starts.

tracyk

Hi KiKi

The £10 per week for 110 papers seemed fair to me too but it's now become 230 papers for £10 (for at least 12 weeks I think) so it's more than doubled - I don't want to cause a fuss but there comes a point where you have to ask whether he's being taken advantage of - as I said before - if this is the going rate then fair doos but I just want to know what other kids are being paid...

property.advert

30 years ago I got 1p a paper for delivering around 200/300 free papers on a Thursday evening. I got an extra 0.5p per leaflet for the first leaflet and 0.25p per leaflet thereafter.

I doubt the pay has risen with inflation / wage inflation or the price would be about 5p or above per paper now I guess. I suspect they get nearer to 2p a paper.

aliasojo

Why don't you call the distributor as the parent of a child who is considering applying for a paper round, and ask what the pay is, what's expected of them and if the wage is set or if they get extra for delivering extra papers?

If you think they might recognise you, ask a friend to call for you.

There's no point in us all offering opinions on pay really, things differ from area to area and what was once the case years ago, wont be now. Also, different newspapers offer different rates, our local free paper is a set wage, whereas the paid for paper, is paid per paper delivered (as set by the newspaper btw, not the distributor).

I was the Supervisor for a particular newspaper and had to organise deiveries and pay. The kids did get paid according to how many papers they delivered but if there were leaflets to get delivered alongside the papers for example, they got paid extra for those, a penny a leaflet if I recall.

As we dealt with a paid for paper, the wage was never set....some customers would cancel their paper which lowered the kid's wage, some customers would start taking delivery so the wage increased. If a kid's round numbers fell below a certain figure, I could give them an allowance which helped bump their wage up a bit until the round numbers picked up again. The point is, the round size affected pay.

As I said, things can differ a lot so you really need to find out what the policy is where you are. Can you get hold of contact details for another distributor anywhere nearish to you? Might be useful to find out if 'your' distributor is pocketing extra that should be going to the kids or not. I'm not saying that is the case here but it does happen sadly. Some people see kids as easy targets.

When all is said and done though, you could be opening a huge can of worms here, what if you find out he is being taken advantage of....will he still want to do the round anyway as he doesn't want to lose the money he does get? Nothing worse than doing something but feeling resentful abut it. Would he want to give it up and see someone else get 'his' wage? How bad does he need the money?

If he isn't being taken advantage of, will he still accept his workload is bigger than his pal's for the same pay? Will the distributor feel aggrieved that his honesty has been questioned and resent your son?

Personally, I would want to know if the situation was correct or had been manipulated somewhat so I'd be calling another distributor or the paper's distribution department themselves (if it is one paper) to query it.

(I'm assuming it is one particular paper because of the 'promotion' comment and the fact the papers get dropped off at your house. Apologies if that's wrong)

eschaton

property.advert wrote: »

30 years ago I got 1p a paper for delivering around 200/300 free papers on a Thursday evening. I got an extra 0.5p per leaflet for the first leaflet and 0.25p per leaflet thereafter.

I doubt the pay has risen with inflation / wage inflation or the price would be about 5p or above per paper now I guess. I suspect they get nearer to 2p a paper.

19yrs ago I got the same - 450 papers for £4.50 if no leaflets and the OP is whining thinking her son is being taken advantage of.

OP needs to wake up and give it a rest.