Partner given up work now cant claim a penny

Morglin

BillJones wrote: »

Yes, and it's people's expectations. Only twenty years ago, when I was a civil servant with a good degree, I did not earn enough to run a car, go away on holidays, buy new clothes, eat out, or do any of the things that people on here seem to assume are akin to rights nowadays.

This was not on minimum wage, it was in a professional job, with a first class physics degree from Oxford, working full time.

For some reason, just two short decades since, people now think that without qualifications,training, or experience, that they should be doing far better than was considered normal back then. That it is expected that they have a mobile phone, sky television, eat takeaway food, and so on.

Of course minimum wage doesn't cover all of these things. It's a bare minimum to survive on. If you want extras, then you need to find a way to pull yourself off the bottom, and for god's sake, this is Britain, one of the world's richest countries, with a world class education system, and a healthy safety net if you try and fail.

If you can't make it off the bottom here, you really, really cannot place the blame externally.

Really?

Twenty years ago, I was also a mid-range civil servant, and I could afford to do all of those things!

Perhaps it's about budgeting, but it also needs to be about paying a decent wage for a decent days work.

Before Tax Credits, we had Family Income Supplement, and Family Credit, both if which were taxpayer funded top ups to income, as Tax Credits are now, so it is about time all employers were forced to pay a living wage.

Lin

Horseunderwater

But what is a living wage? Some say £7.30 - others say £10/hr. And I too was a civil servant & had to have Cambridge weighting added to mine - my final wage there was £13,393 or thereabouts & I still could not afford to move out of family home! But in the end I got married & we bought a house to live in. Still in that same house trying to pay the mortgage but at least the interest:capital ratio is much better now.

dippy3103

Think living wage has to vary across the country. I notice when we visit family in London that even the basics are a few pence more in Tesco there than here. Rents, council tax etc vary so wildly across the country. Which is why adding housing costs to UC is such a bad idea....

Marisco

I think a living wage would be one (regardless of where you live) where you can pay your housing costs and bills without top up benefits. Obviously this means that wages in the SE and London, would have to be considerably higher than they would up here, to take housing costs into account. And when I say bills, I don't mean Sky, top of the range gizzmos and mobiles either!

duchy

A living wage....to me is one where without excessive spending you can sustain a sensible quality of life. Sensible to me means affording to pay rent or mortgage on an appropriate level of housing, feed youyr family, pay utility bills , clothe your family and have enough left over to save a little towards luxuries like iphones, 3 d tvs . .... without needing the state to have to top up rent with a subsidy.

I do think the time has come to toughen up of BTL landlords who are pushing rent levels artificially high with a different method of taxation for landlords who own multiple properties (eg I wouldn't hit those who own one "extra" as that can be down to relocation but more than that I would)

Sadly I'm not paid a living wage....and it's tough.

quidsy

Get oh back into work & find a childminder, then you can claim some tax free allowance back in childcare vouchers. I never understand people giving up work without looking at their budget, pretty silly really to quit a job before knowing if you could afford to live.

dundeediva

one if the problems is people not living within their means. I worked in a minimum wage job for 6 years and I didn't have the latest telly, I didn't have a night out every week. I knew what I was able to spend every month and what I had to save. Its not hard to work out, some people expect to be spoonfed everything.

I'm not saying that people who lose their jobs should get nothing, but if i lost my job, my mobile phone would be sold and I would be getting a cheap replacement. I would be downgrading my tv/broadband/phone package (if not getting rid). People dont do this though, and expect the taxpayer to fund the "normal" lifestyle.

BillJones

Morglin wrote: »

Really?

Twenty years ago, I was also a mid-range civil servant, and I could afford to do all of those things!

Had I stuck it out for a decade, I'd have likely moved up to also being a "mid-range" civil servant, and been able to afford those things too. Starting out, the money simply wasn't enough.

As it was, I decided to aim higher, and returned to university to get my doctorate, and from there made my way into a better paid career entirely.

BillJones

dundeediva wrote: »

one if the problems is people not living within their means.

One problem, of course, is that people believe that they "deserve" a more expensive lifestyle than their wages afford, and so they feel that it is justified that they take on more and more debt.

When my money ran low, my leisure activity became wandering around town. When my food money was low, I ate staples and basics. I never, never "allowed" myself a treat early in the month, and then ran out of money at the end. I knew how much I had per day available for luxuries, such as hot food or renting a video, and stayed within that. If I did well at the start of the month, I might allow myself something extra at the end, within that month's budget, but wouldn't have dreamed of borrowing from the month's budget at the start, the golden rule was never to be spending ahead of what I'd accrued.

I understand that nowadays there are many people who find such prudence ridiculous, and who refuse to live like that. They have to understand, though, that people like me who did live that way are not keen to increase our tax levels to subsidise others so that they don't have to.

FBaby

A living wage....to me is one where without excessive spending you can sustain a sensible quality of life. Sensible to me means affording to pay rent or mortgage on an appropriate level of housing, feed youyr family, pay utility bills , clothe your family and have enough left over to save a little towards luxuries like iphones, 3 d tvs . .... without needing the state to have to top up rent with a subsidy.

So everyone in this country should be able to afford these? Why sell anything else?

I think you should be able afford more luxuries as you get older. Unfortunately, younger people, who just had a job seem to think they should be entitled to these just because they work (or even some believe they should be entitled to them not working!).