What is a good salary?

[BlueHammer85]

Get North mate, that will go much further

just the 200 miles to the office the only sticky point.

 

[stonerblue]

I've not had a 'salary' for 20 odd years, and back then it was called 'wages'.

 

[stonerblue]

just the 200 miles to the office the only sticky point.

minor inconvenience

 

[Kompany Car]

Honestly in life you need enough for you and your family to be secure. Security brings happiness not having the biggest house, fanciest clothes, nicest car etc.

How do you classify being secure ?

• A normal sized house in a good area with low crime and decent schools.
• Being able to service the mortgage on the house and household bills, with a mortgage that you can pay off before you retire.
• Having enough money to put food on the table, one holiday a year somewhere sunny and go out once a week.
• A couple of grand in the bank as a rainy day fund.
• Be able to run a car no older than 10yrs old.

Other than that what more do you want ? Everything beyond that is just bigger and fancier which dont bring any more happiness.

Now try to achieve that on an average salary.

 

[oldius]

Median UK salary - 31k
AV house price - 270k
AV UK rent - 1188 pm
AV UK Council tax - 158 pm
AV utility bills £208 pm

Net take home £2043
230k mortgage £1131

So without children, a car, food, entertainment, childcare, travel expenses, insurance, or clothes, someone on the average UK salary would have 546pm left.

 

[Tricky_Trev]

Sigh. I knew I shouldn’t have read this thread.

 

[Kompany Car]

Median UK salary - 31k
AV house price - 270k
AV UK rent - 1188 pm
AV UK Council tax - 158 pm
AV utility bills £208 pm

Net take home £2043
230k mortgage £1131

So without children, a car, food, entertainment, childcare, travel expenses, insurance, or clothes, someone on the average UK salary would have 546pm left.

Which is kind of the point I was making without spelling it out. To be secure and live a reasonable life, but by no means to excess is well out of the reach of most people. You are probably looking at double the average UK salary.

 

[oldius]

Which is kind of the point I was making without spelling it out. To be secure and live a reasonable life, but by no means to excess is well out of the reach of most people. You are probably looking at double the average UK salary.

You are right. I have lived in the UK and I have lived elsewhere. The cost of a decent life in the UK is now extremely high in most areas, but wages have not kept pace.

 

[Kompany Car]

You are right. I have lived in the UK and I have lived elsewhere. The cost of a decent life in the UK is now extremely high in most areas, but wages have not kept pace.

Its the oldest trick in the book, pay people just enough to stop them revolting but never enough to feel comfortable.

 

[oldius]

Its the oldest trick in the book, pay people just enough to stop them revolting but never enough to feel comfortable.

Sadly, many people (even on this thread) have condemned workers asking for 'inflation busting' pay rises, despite the simple fact that their pay has barely moved in a decade. The same people then believe the politicians who claim that awarding such rises will be terrible for inflation, completely ignoring the fact that the soaring inflation we have has come at the same time as wages being stifled. Meanwhile:

• FTSE 250 CEOs saw a similar 38% pay increase, with median pay rising from £1.25m in 2020 to £1.72m in 2021.
• FTSE 100 CEOs annual bonuses leapt to £1.4m compared to £828k in 2020 and £1.1m in 2019. 90% of CEOs received a bonus.

I don't think it is too much to ask for someone on the average salary in the UK, to be able to buy the average house, to be able to heat it and and be able to buy some clothes and have a holiday.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

Sadly, many people (even on this thread) have condemned workers asking for 'inflation busting' pay rises, despite the simple fact that their pay has barely moved in a decade. The same people then believe the politicians who claim that awarding such rises will be terrible for inflation, completely ignoring the fact that the soaring inflation we have has come at the same time as wages being stifled.

I wonder if the fact that a lot of the older generations have a mortgage that they've already paid off and kids already left the nest basically shields them from the cost of living. The "I can survive on 20 grand, so why can't you?" to the people who are struggling to find a rental for less than 12 grand a year without bills.

 

[oldius]

I wonder if the fact that a lot of the older generations have a mortgage that they've already paid off and kids already left the nest basically shields them from the cost of living. The "I can survive on 20 grand, so why can't you?" to the people who are struggling to find a rental for less than 12 grand a year without bills.

My parents are of the opinion that things were 'just as hard'. They were working class - my mum a cleaner and my dad an electrician. We worked out that 90 weeks of net take home pay (all of it) would have bought their house, in Sale, outright. 90 weeks of average take home pay now would pay £45 - £50k. Things are simply not the same and my parents were shocked when I did the calculation.

BTW, their first house (council flat before) was £2750. My dad was on £31 a week take home pay.

 

[ganganvince]

Sadly, many people (even on this thread) have condemned workers asking for 'inflation busting' pay rises, despite the simple fact that their pay has barely moved in a decade. The same people then believe the politicians who claim that awarding such rises will be terrible for inflation, completely ignoring the fact that the soaring inflation we have has come at the same time as wages being stifled. Meanwhile:

• FTSE 250 CEOs saw a similar 38% pay increase, with median pay rising from £1.25m in 2020 to £1.72m in 2021.
• FTSE 100 CEOs annual bonuses leapt to £1.4m compared to £828k in 2020 and £1.1m in 2019. 90% of CEOs received a bonus.

I don't think it is too much to ask for someone on the average salary in the UK, to be able to buy the average house, to be able to heat it and and be able to buy some clothes and have a holiday.

I used the inflation busting pay rises on this thread but never mentioned workers I was talking in general.

 

[Citizen of Legoland]

My parents are of the opinion that things were 'just as hard'. They were working class - my mum a cleaner and my dad an electrician. We worked out that 90 weeks of net take home pay (all of it) would have bought their house, in Sale, outright. 90 weeks of average take home pay now would pay £45 - £50k. Things are simply not the same and my parents were shocked when I did the calculation.

BTW, their first house (council flat before) was £2750. My dad was on £31 a week take home pay.

The problem though was the financial situation in most countries was far less stable. Committing to purchasing a house in the seventies was a big risk against a backdrop of rising unemployment, and the vast majority of workers were in factories. They would have remembered, or heard stories, of being able just a decade or so earlier, of being able to walk out of one factory job and into another, but times and industries were changing and some were coming to a complete stop. So confidence of commitment to long term investments was low. Remember, in those days if you defaulted on a loan of any kind you got very little help nor sympathy. It was your risk to take it on. No or very few fixed rate mortgages, not even capped rates. Which is why people rented everything.

 

[denislawsbackheel]

Also building societies would only lend on one salary, not a couples and only then after you had been investing with them for several years.

 

[meltonblue]

Sadly, many people (even on this thread) have condemned workers asking for 'inflation busting' pay rises, despite the simple fact that their pay has barely moved in a decade. The same people then believe the politicians who claim that awarding such rises will be terrible for inflation, completely ignoring the fact that the soaring inflation we have has come at the same time as wages being stifled. Meanwhile:

• FTSE 250 CEOs saw a similar 38% pay increase, with median pay rising from £1.25m in 2020 to £1.72m in 2021.
• FTSE 100 CEOs annual bonuses leapt to £1.4m compared to £828k in 2020 and £1.1m in 2019. 90% of CEOs received a bonus.

I don't think it is too much to ask for someone on the average salary in the UK, to be able to buy the average house, to be able to heat it and and be able to buy some clothes and have a holiday.

Really do think we need an overhaul of our tax system completely, the disparity has become too great. Even with the income disparity, we focus too much on that rather than wealth. They’ll be making just as much from property ownership…

 

[BrianW]

I don't think it is too much to ask for someone on the average salary in the UK, to be able to buy the average house, to be able to heat it and and be able to buy some clothes and have a holiday.

That makes you an extreme lefty these days.

'Moderates' believe workers should humbly accept whatever they are given, and sleep in a cardboard box if necessary. To ask for more is outrageous insubordination.

 

[oldius]

The problem though was the financial situation in most countries was far less stable. Committing to purchasing a house in the seventies was a big risk against a backdrop of rising unemployment, and the vast majority of workers were in factories. They would have remembered, or heard stories, of being able just a decade or so earlier, of being able to walk out of one factory job and into another, but times and industries were changing and some were coming to a complete stop. So confidence of commitment to long term investments was low. Remember, in those days if you defaulted on a loan of any kind you got very little help nor sympathy. It was your risk to take it on. No or very few fixed rate mortgages, not even capped rates. Which is why people rented everything.

Indeed, that is fact. Nevertheless, 90 weeks pay bought a terraced house in Sale. The average price of a house on that road, in 2023, is £308k. At the current median UK salary, that would take 616 weeks to repay, using full net pay.

 

[oldius]

That makes you an extreme lefty these days.

'Moderates' believe workers should humbly accept whatever they are given, and sleep in a cardboard box if necessary. To ask for more is outrageous insubordination.

Guilty, as charged in the court of my mum and dad!

 

[halfmist]

Really do think we need an overhaul of our tax system completely, the disparity has become too great. Even with the income disparity, we focus too much on that rather than wealth. They’ll be making just as much from property ownership…

With around,I would guess, around 80% of those who bother to vote, having some sort of vested interest in property, it would be a very brave or foolish Party who removed the tax free benefit of home ownership. If the tax was based on profit on sale , nobody would bother moving which would kill the housing market, labour mobility and downsizing by those in larger properties. It would be a disaster.