Working to Live

Whenever the idea of a "minimum" wage gets floated the discussion sooner or later turns to the concept of a 'living wage', the amount you would have to get paid to keep body and soul together within certain reasonable limits. I recently came across a response to blog on a certain well known newspaper's website deploring the pittance paid to one of the other commentators, and claiming that if "they" paid everyone a fair, living, wage, all would be well. While the concept seemed reasonable I struggled to consider £9 an hour (net!) to be particularly hard done by (a quick bit of maths suggests this is about £1 an hour more then I earn). Thus, armed with the websites of various high street retailers, I set about attempting to calculate a genuine living wage for 21st century Britain.

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As with any exercise of this nature I've made a few assumptions;

1.) You already have some form of day to day assets (i.e. a toaster, kettle, frying pan and so on). If you don't then the figures below would have to be amended with some form of 'one off' start up costs. Replacements of these items come under 'miscellanous'.

2.) You have a freezer. This is close to essential, period.

3.) You can walk to work. I don't consider this a particularly unreasonable assumption, I've walked to work for the best part of the last four years.

4.) "Living" does not include things like techno-gadgetry, (iPods, pads, phones), overseas holidays, gym membership, or anything else which billions of people on the planet get by without ever seeing or hearing of.

5.) You don't have any debts or loans to repay. This may or may not be reasonable, be seems to complicate the calculation without adding much to the value of the conclusion.

6.) You don't have to pay tax (including council tax), the number presented below is significantly under any existing threshold for PAYE, it would seem reasonable to extend a council tax rebate to those on this level of income.

With these in mind, what have I included? Simply put the figure below is based on three components; rent, food and miscellaneous.

Rent      £3,000 (12 x £250)
This simply covers the monthly cost of renting a room or flat. The figure of £250 is taken directly from a website for my area and represents a single furnished room in a shared house. Not fancy or impressive, but it is certainly sufficient for to meet the criteria for "living."

Food    £1,040 (£20 x 52)
I'll preface this section with an extract from a conversation between myself and a real-life friend upon me presenting the statement that you can live on £20 a week;

 [18:55:09] Zarl: according to the [removed] website you could buy a weeks worth of food, plus odds and ends (soap, tea, milk etc) for about £18
[18:55:22] [removed]: BULLSHIT

So, to prevent similar recriminations, here is the list that this figure is based upon (The figures on brackets represent percentages where you don't need to consume an entire item in one meal).

BREAKFAST
Cornflakes    0.31
2x milk        £2


LUNCH
Bread        £0.47
Cheese        £1.77
Ham        0.61
Tomatoes        £1

DINNER
1.
Pasta        1.34 (x0.25)
Sauce        0.39
Sausages    0.56 (0.5)

2.
Wedges        0.59 (0.33)
Fish        0.69 (0.5)
Veg        0.75 (0.25)

3.
Rice        0.40 (0.2)
Chicken         2.03 (0.5)
Sauce        0.79 (0.5)


3.
Wedges        0.59 (0.33)
Veg        0.75 (0.25)
Kievs        1.29

4.
Wedges        0.59 (0.33)
Veg        0.75 (0.25)
Sausages    0.56 (0.5)

5.
Jacket Potato    0.75 (0.5)
Cheese        (included above)

6.
Wedges        0.59 (0.33)
Veg        0.75 (0.25)
Burger        0.79 (0.5)

7.
Pasta        1.34 (x0.25)
White sauce    1.19 (0.5)
Tuna        0.54   

EXTRAS
Apples        1.50
oranges        2.00
Tea        0.27 (0.25)
toothpaste    0.25
Soap        0.60

This all adds up to about £18, for the sake of convenience I've rounded this up to £20.

Miscellaneous   £1,040 (£20 x 52)
Ultimately there are plenty of expenses not covered above (clothes, some form of entertainment, umbrellas, cake and so on). To cover this I've allowed an additional expenditure of £20 per week.

Total: £5,080

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Having established a figure for a possible annual expenditure, the second part of the analysis is to look at how many hours you expect to be working in that year. This is very much up for debate, though for my sake I picked 1680 hours per year. This is the equivalent of 35 hours a day, five days a week, forty-eight weeks a years. This gives you weekends and evenings off, and four weeks a year holiday. Taking this number and dividing against the number above gives a grand total off..

*drum roll*

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UK Living Wage: £3.02 per hour.

Perhaps we all need to reconsider the question, am I living to work, or working to live?

/Zarl

EDIT: Interestingly I recently watched a psuedo-documentary on the welfare state of the 1940's. Under the regulations and allowances of that time if you were unemployed, with no savings or income, and were actively seeking employment, you'd get somewhere around £35 a week. Not that far of my number from above?