Our equivalent of the Social Security Number is the National Insurance Number. Which is looks so like this TN123456A This is a made up one, but it's always two letter six numbers and then either A,B, C or D. It's used for the tax and national insurance contributions we pay on wages, getting any benefits (sickness, maternity, unemployment, old age pension, free school meals for your children etc).
We also have an National Health service number, but almost nobody knows what their one is and I can't think of any time when you'd be needed to know it. It's more something that doctor use as a reference on your notes so if your GP send you to the hospital for something they can make sure they got the right notes.
For pay over here the minimum wage here the rate varies by age. Year 21 and over 18 to 20 Under 18 Apprentice(under 19) 2013 £6.31 £5.03 £3.72 £2.68
What is considered a liveable wage is £7.45 for most of the UK and £8.55 in London.
Even at 7.45 an hour you'd still only be on £14,334 a year, and given that even a very cheap 1 bed flat in a fairly run down part of town in a cheap northern city is about 50,000 and banks will only lend 3.5 X salary for a mortgage worth up 90% of the property value, they wouldn't be able buy a house, unless they'd saved up a reasonable sized deposit. Which is difficult as rents are high, often more than the mortgage payments on a house/flat of the same size. So young people often still live with their parents or once they've got a girl/boy friend rent somewhere together. Flat/house sharing with somebody who's not a partner isn't that common unless you are a student or are so down on your luck you are renting a room in a shared house with complete strangers sharing the kitchen/communal area if you've got one. In London the same flat would be more like £100k.
It's hard to compare whether minimum wages are good or know without really knowing what they will buy. For example here if you had a full time 37 hours a week job you'd get 14333 before tax and NI, people usually get paid monthly here, so 1194 per month. The tax of about £82 and National Insurance of £65. Leaving £1047. Rent of about £500, gas and electricity 100, water £20, TV licence fee 35. Car insurance and tax (assuming small car with an engine of less than 1.4 litres and a good no claims bonus) £75. 2 tanks of petrol (45 litres or 9.9 gallons) £120. (Petrol and diesel is very expensive over here 1 gallon of petrol costs £6.30 or about $9.84)
By the time a person has paid all this there isn't really much left for anything other than food. It's very difficult to more than just survive on a single minimum wage job if you live by yourself. Supporting 2 people or even a family on it is very tough to do for more than a short period of time.
The price of fuel is one of the reasons we have so many buses over here. I gave up my car four years ago because it cost me £200 a month to run (tax, insure fuel) while I could get a county wide bus ticket for as many trips as I wanted each month for £45. A lot of people have done the same since the recession, the number of cars on the road has fallen by about 3% despite the population growing.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2013-08-22 10:23 am (UTC)It's used for the tax and national insurance contributions we pay on wages, getting any benefits (sickness, maternity, unemployment, old age pension, free school meals for your children etc).
We also have an National Health service number, but almost nobody knows what their one is and I can't think of any time when you'd be needed to know it. It's more something that doctor use as a reference on your notes so if your GP send you to the hospital for something they can make sure they got the right notes.
For pay over here the minimum wage here the rate varies by age.
Year 21 and over 18 to 20 Under 18 Apprentice(under 19)
2013 £6.31 £5.03 £3.72 £2.68
What is considered a liveable wage is £7.45 for most of the UK and £8.55 in London.
Even at 7.45 an hour you'd still only be on £14,334 a year, and given that even a very cheap 1 bed flat in a fairly run down part of town in a cheap northern city is about 50,000 and banks will only lend 3.5 X salary for a mortgage worth up 90% of the property value, they wouldn't be able buy a house, unless they'd saved up a reasonable sized deposit. Which is difficult as rents are high, often more than the mortgage payments on a house/flat of the same size. So young people often still live with their parents or once they've got a girl/boy friend rent somewhere together. Flat/house sharing with somebody who's not a partner isn't that common unless you are a student or are so down on your luck you are renting a room in a shared house with complete strangers sharing the kitchen/communal area if you've got one. In London the same flat would be more like £100k.
It's hard to compare whether minimum wages are good or know without really knowing what they will buy.
For example here if you had a full time 37 hours a week job you'd get 14333 before tax and NI, people usually get paid monthly here, so 1194 per month. The tax of about £82 and National Insurance of £65. Leaving £1047. Rent of about £500, gas and electricity 100, water £20, TV licence fee 35. Car insurance and tax (assuming small car with an engine of less than 1.4 litres and a good no claims bonus) £75. 2 tanks of petrol (45 litres or 9.9 gallons) £120.
(Petrol and diesel is very expensive over here 1 gallon of petrol costs £6.30 or about $9.84)
By the time a person has paid all this there isn't really much left for anything other than food. It's very difficult to more than just survive on a single minimum wage job if you live by yourself. Supporting 2 people or even a family on it is very tough to do for more than a short period of time.
The price of fuel is one of the reasons we have so many buses over here. I gave up my car four years ago because it cost me £200 a month to run (tax, insure fuel) while I could get a county wide bus ticket for as many trips as I wanted each month for £45. A lot of people have done the same since the recession, the number of cars on the road has fallen by about 3% despite the population growing.