If someone hasn't had a cost of living pay rise in 10 years i.e. since 2011, and in 2011 they are earning £28k a year, how much should/ would they be on with cost of living rises alone? Asking for a very disgruntled friend.
The pound had an average inflation rate of 2.26% per year between 2011 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 25.02%. ... Why a pound today is worth only 80% of a pound in 2011.
Rough maths based on 3% would get you to £36.5k in year ten. Isn’t cost of living linked to RPI which has regularly been around 2.5%?
This suggests they should be receiving £33,423.60. Value of 2011 British Pounds today - Inflation calculator (inflationtool.com) Lots of other variables though!
They would have earnt slightly more than average wage in 2011 (ave was £26k), so would expect to be on more than average wage now (£31k), so around £32-34k depending on other factors - are they doing the exact same job, learned any new skills, gained any qualifications, taken significant time off (maternity leave), etc.
It’s difficult to judge what the annual rise would have been as we were recovering from the 2008 financial crisis for a lot of those years.. but as a bare minimum if you use the 1% annual rise the civil service were restricted to the salary would now be just short of 31k… but the difference in total earnings over that 10 year period would be just short of 16k… I’d said that would be the starting point and potentially way way more!
There are people currently employed in the private sector (construction/FM) in the job I had in 2008, getting paid less than I was getting paid then. Until last year I've never had an above the rate of inflation wage rise without promotion/leaving for a new job.
Agree with most. About £33 - 34k. From my point of view why would any decent, civilised, reasonable, positive society ever be debating , in any sense limiting the right to house, clothe and feed your children? Cost of living remuneration just standard decency in my book. The fact that there seems to be some debate about it tells me all I need to know about the accepted economic model in The West!
This shows just how much the Monetarists and their media mates have changed the employment landscape. The absolute lie that business can’t afford to maintain a living wage. Resulting in a huge shift in distribution of available resource. The last 40 years have seen the rich get massively richer whilst the average workers income has shrunk. Meanwhile it’s not difficult to find ordinary working class people who fully support this, and not just those that are comfortably above the breadline either.
For the original question though: If I was constructing an argument for how much the salary should have risen, I wouldn’t be using inflation figures, but looking for average income increases (which will probably be beneath inflation). As many have said here; millions of us have suffered below inflation rises over the same period. So; whilst I believe people absolutely do deserve inflation meeting wages, asking for that as compensation is a tricky premise.