Originally posted by Spirit
2/3 of the UK average is too low imho, although it does also depend on the value of the monthly demand - if they are only asking £20 a month then it's not really a concern if you are earning £10k (which is 2/3 of the UK Av), but if its £100 then obv somethings wrong. imho a value of about £50 a month when you are earning £15k is about right, then it should increase proportionately with your earnings.
I spent my first year as a trainee solicitor on £10,000 a year before tax.
Tax went like this: (all rates/allowances for 2001/2002 tax year)
1) £10,000 gross earnings
2) £4535 - Personal Allowance (non taxed income)
3) So = £5465 of taxable income.
4) First £1880 of income to be taxed at 10% (starting rate) = £188 of starting rate tax.
5) So = £3585 of income to be taxed at 22% (basic rate) = £788.70 of basic rate tax.
6) National Insurance - basically another 10% income tax on £5465 = £546.50
7) So total tax = £188 + £788.70 + £546.50 = £1523.20 total tax.
8) So net pay = £10,000 - £1523.20 =
£8,476.80
9) £8476.80 / 12 =
£706.40 per month.
Now, from that monthly figure, deduct rent, food, council tax, heating bill, phone bill, contents insurance and sundry other
necessities and even repaying a loan debt at £10 per month/week will basically break your budget.
I have been on £10,000 gross a year. It is not fun. You can't
live on it. You can
survive on it. That is not the same thing. Amusingly, because of my job, I was unable to claim any of the benefits that anyone in any other job would have been able to claim. But that is by the by. My heart would go out to anyone having to repay student debt on £10,000 a year.
The government is fond of tossing about figures saying graduate's starting salaries are £20,000 and that graduates earn £400,000 more over a working lifetime than other people.
This is quite simply
bullshit, unless by "graduate" you mean someone leaving oxford/cambridge and going to work for a major bank in London.
The truth is, average graduate starting salaries are in the £13,000 - £16,000 range, and most nearer to £13,000 I suspect.
What I find disgusting is politicians who themselves all went to uni at a time when they got full grants, fees paid for them, and are now in cosy civil service jobs with salaries in excess of £60,000 per year, coupled with average benefits packages amounting to another £20,000 per year (relocation expenses, secretarial allowance etc) and fat pensions they don't need to contribute to at all, which is all funded courtesy of the taxpayer, and who seem to award themselves yearly 40% pay rises are now the ones telling other people they earn too much, should not get such big pay rises and should pay their own way through university. What utter, rank hypocrisy. Especially when it comes from a
Labour politician.
@ Spirit - if 40% fell below the repayment threshold for student loans, it doesn't follow that the other 60% were automatically earning telephone number salaries. Most will have only just been in the repayment threshold.
Compare with income tax - £1 is enough to change you from a basic rate, to a higher rate taxpayer. When that happens, your tax rate nearly doubles, and you lose a whole host of benefits and allowances.
Most higher rate tax payers are not super rich bastards who deserve to be squeezed until the pips squeak. Most are in fact just into/above the threshold, and are actually far worse off than those earning in some cases £100 less per year.