Wages Today......quite staggering when you think about it.

[MontyVeda]

At the age of 16 I was paid approx 1/4 of a tradesman's wage, I appreciate that I was learning the trade and had no real production, this does not happen today.

have you seen how much 16 year old apprentices are paid these days?

 

[Jenkins]

My grandaughter is 16 and at college. She has just got a weekend job as a 'house keeper' in a sheltered home type place.
£9.00 PER HOUR .
When I was 15 I worked 40 hours a week for £4.50 (thats £4 10 shillings in real money). Its hard to equate that.

Your grandaughter is very lucky - the minimum wage for someone under 18 is currently £4.35, increasing to £4.55 in April (which is what my niece gets for her weekend job)

https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates

 

[carlosfandangus]

have you seen how much 16 year old apprentices are paid these days?

No....please enlighten me

 

[screenman]

As the OP says. Everyone gets the same £9 rate. So there is zero career progression and no incentive to do your job well.
it’s counter intuitive to a successful business, staff need to know there is a ladder. Older , more experienced workers should be paid more.

I almost agree but added if they produce more, I know of plenty of mature workers that have made a skill out of skiving.

 

[Archie_tect]

Apprentices on Technical College day release learnt the theory and then applied that theory on the job, paid by their employers for the work they could do, nowadays apprentice schemes are a way of employers getting tax break incentives with little or no applied training on the job.

 

[screenman]

Too many employers treat the minimum wage as their excuse to make it the maximum wage and with few alternatives they can get away with it.

Many employers cannot even afford to pay that much though, which is why so many are going out of business.

 

[Dave7]

Oh dear @Dave7, I hope you have the Hovis out, and the Rose tinted spectacles!

We must be roughly same age, first job paid £3 9s 2d (£3.46). Mind you, pint of beer was 10d, (4.5p). Not that I drank of course, at 16, that would be against the law

Its my 73rd today. I started drinking aged 17 but tbh can't recall if it was 9d or 1s 9d per pint.

 

[Dave7]

Oh dear @Dave7, I hope you have the Hovis out, and the Rose tinted spectacles!

We must be roughly same age, first job paid £3 9s 2d (£3.46). Mind you, pint of beer was 10d, (4.5p). Not that I drank of course, at 16, that would be against the law

Your from Tyneside. We have just been listening to Jimmy Nail.....one of our favourites.

 

[midlife]

Happy birthday . Strange to think I have less disposable income now than I did in 2001.

 

[MontyVeda]

No....please enlighten me

£3.90

 

[BoldonLad]

Its my 73rd today. I started drinking aged 17 but tbh can't recall if it was 9d or 1s 9d per pint.

Happy birthday!

You are a "good vintage", ie 1947, like myself

 

[SpokeyDokey]

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator

Can that be legitimately used for wage comparisons?

I've been very well paid from the off in my career but my calculated 2019 (£50867) salary figure seems overly high relative to my actual 1978 figure (£8800). I'd would've thought it would be closer to £40000 which was good for a 22 year old I have to admit especially after seeing some of the '70's wage quote figures on here.

Sadly, I confess to having kept a record of my annual earnings since 1975 - bit of an OCD thing I think.

 

[BoldonLad]

That is the issue
Minimum wage should be for a zero skill, sedentary job.
A job you can learn how to do in under one shift and that does not involve doing much
A new, young, Security guard with no responsibility would be an example.

So why are waitresses (for example) being paid minimum wage ?
I'd like the Treasury to start looking at shops and restaurants (and many others) and taxing the company on the basis of proper pay for staff.

For example - we expect a young waitress to be on a minimum wage plus 20%, so we will be taxing you on that minimum basis.

It may not be a pleasant thought, but, Labour is subject to the law of supply and demand, just like any other commodity. If employers cannot get employees to fulfil a given role, wages (for that role) increase.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Can that be legitimately used for wage comparisons?

It's based on CPI, which is an inflation index excluding housing costs.

The equivalent using RPI would give larger ratios.

Either way it's a measure of purchasing power.

Of course, as the economy has grown you'd expect purchasing power to go up too.

You can see by how much by looking at GDP per capita - this is normally quoted inflation adjusted. That shows you'd expect to have about double the purchasing power now than in 1980, assuming there benefit of growth is evenly spread across all people.

Finally, you could compare vs real earnings, which would give a comparison for how youth wages have grown compared to overall wages.

All of these are legitimate, I guess, just different.

 

[cosmicbike]

30 years ago as a Saturday/early morning job as a greengrocer it was £2/hr, which went up to £2.50 when I was allowed to serve customers, and yes, it was always a little bit over OK love...(for those old enough to remember being served as opposed to pick your own).
In 1994 my starting salary was £7k as an engineering apprentice, it's comfortably double that now at my place, decent scheme too.