Rich kid poor kid

When ours were little the wife worked 6am-10am and I did regular afters 2pm-10pm.
Now this worked for us in once sense but the time had a very restrictive influence on my progress career wise. I basically couldn't apply for roles to progress as I couldn't work the hours. But if I could have then it may have in time led to a better paid role but I was stuck.
Now as fate would have it we ended up with 2 autistic children and the wife quit work to help care for them.
She wouldn't have been able to afford to do this without some of the benefits we receive and it will become a issues again when they reach adulthood.
The point been so many factors go into people decisions that its lazy to just assume anyone is simply choosing to sit home and watch TV. I'm sure some do but many need support for a variety of reasons. Let's not fall into the trap of blaming those on benefits for needing help.

 

The minimum wage will be £15 one day,,,,, the day the going rate is £25!

 

I don't think that's been suggested so far. Staying on the original point, the opening post stated the geezer made a choice. And an understandable one it is too.

It didn't make reference to any additional support or disabilities etc which is a seperate issue entirely.

I don't think anyone here is suggesting benefits in those circumstances should be restricted in any way. Just that he made an active lifestyle choice because it made no sense to work for the same outcome money wise of doing 18 or 40 hours.

 

How old were the kids? If they were over 5, they'd be at school 30 hours per week so he wouldn't see any more of them anyway

 

The point I was making is we don't know all the factors in anyone's decisions. I wasn't picking out anything or anyone in particular.
Just the general belief by many that benefits should be slashed to make people more willing to work. When the real issue is the distribution of wealth is such that wages at the bottom can be too low to live on.

 

Unfortunately this is where generations of tinkering have got us.
In the case the OP quoted you can’t blame the guy, as why would anybody risk losing benefits by working more?
On the other hand surely it can’t be right that somebody can stay at home half the week and earn nearly as much as somebody working full time.
No idea what the answer is, when I was younger in many cases the man was still the ‘breadwinner’ and if they needed more money they did overtime and most sensible couples budgeted for kids.
You had your non skilled, semi skilled , skilled and blue collar workers and somehow it pretty much worked.
‘Course you had your skivers but that has always been the case.
Unfortunately over the years the cost of living has got skewed against the rate of wage rises and lots of couples had to have both working. That was also the case for myself and my OH but I was fortunate in that I could work flexible hours and we managed to juggle the childcare thing.
Childcare is a real problem in so much it costs so much but if you reduce that the carers suffer, maybe if the government made it claimable?
As I said before I have no idea of the way out of it.

 

But there must be further complications.
Because if you work and claim benefits, you get to keep 40p in the £ for every extra £ you earn, up to the max, when you’d be earning more than the max benefits would give.

So for him to say ‘he’d earn no more’ there must be other considerations.
I could guess some scenarios, but it would be unfair.

 

Hourly rate is not the thing folk should only consider when taking pay into account.
The self employed in a trade would need to look at round about double the rate of an employee on the books and a salary.
Holidays, pensions, sickness and many other benefits are all generally encompassed into an employee that is paye..
£17ph for a spark on the books in industry for example would be about the norm. More extras if on shiftwork. Or overtime rates.
A self employed spark would need to be looking at £30/£40ph. To achieve a similar standard of living.
A lot of people make the mistake of thinking they are being ripped off at such hourly rates.
I worked at YW and it was about double my salary to employ me.

 

This is a bit of a ramble, but I don't understand how so many seem to get stuck in such low paid labour.

I've been on the dole twice. The second time I decided to better myself and aim big at an industry that would make me wealthy. Why not? TBF I was 25 so had time on my side, but decided to become a pilot despite a complete lack of experience, funds and qualifications. I went back to school and got my O level GCSE's and set about learning everything I could about planes, passing my theory. I didn't work as I was living rurally and the cost of a car would have made me worse off than being on social welfare and would have meant less study time.

When I started flying planes I saw I needed funds, so choose an industry to work in where there is real opportunity to move through the payscales quickly. I moved to London as that is where the opportunity is and took a job for £18k a year. I saved every penny I owned to fly planes for three years.

Becoming a pilot didn't work out, but it wasn't through a lack of trying. The backup career I choose has blossomed and now I earn many times what I started on and am very fulfilled in my career.

I suppose my point is that many in this country don't seem to be able to dream bigger and don't understand how to progress. This is what we should be instilling in our kids and the future will look after itself rather than arguing over who has the shittest lot.

 

Fair play to you too mate

 

Great post's, when your self employed trying to balance the books an people want more than your earning it pays to do it yasen, work the hours, keep yer money, reap the rewards. And retire comfortably at 55.

 

Agree to a point. But wages need to be brought up to a standard that benefit the employed. Some of these low paid jobs need dedicated employees that we'd be all the poorer for if they didn't exist. Eg Carers.
Also I'd say pay is not the be all and end all. I'd say job satisfaction is as important. I jacked my job in last april 9 months before state pension age. (choosing to live off my work pensions.) because I hated it in the end (but loved my role previously for nye on 50 yrs) after suffering severe depression due to mis management, and as one of my colleagues said. The lunatics are running the lunatic asylum. And couldn't run a pee up in a brewery. One of the posters on here could testify it's getting even worse.

 

Absolutely agree that those doing crucial roles, my two sisters amongst them, should be paid fairly for their skill, dedication, responsibility and huge amount of training.

 

It all started when they let housewives off the leash.
Seriously though, when the WW2 started,( and to some extent WW1) women took on jobs vacated by the men conscripted to fight. When the war ended, women were reluctant to vive up the freedoms they had enjoyed working. At first, there was the tendency for many women to revert to the traditional ' homemaker role'. By doing so, One person, usually the man, became the breadwinner and the partner raised the family eliminating the crippling childcare costs that cause so many issues. All this was helped by the fact that most jobs paid sufficient wages for people to manage. Wages in many instances are so low now that both partners need to work full or part time to make ends meet. People rightly expect and demand a higher standard of living than existed back in the '50s and women certainly should not be put back in the 'housewife, mother, and homemaker' box they endured for so many years.

 

Rich Kids Go Skint season 5 started this week on 5Star. The rich lass they had on from Southend came across really well, when usually on there the rich person comes across snobby.

 

Who's going to do my ironing.?

 

That’s what we’ve been on about for last 24hr