NationStates Jolt Archive

Actually I am wondering a thing and since here seems to be a lot of people from many and many countries, I'd like to know something.

In your Country the average wage of a beginning worker is enough to :
- Pay the rent of a little apartment...or may be paying 1/2 rent by sharing it
with another person?
- Eat for the full month?
- Have a little entertainment (may be a cinema or a little one-day-travel by
train per week)?
- Keep enough money to have an hedge of independence for medicines, clothes and times of lack of work?

Do in your Country the "average joe" earn enough to do all these things from his beginning work?
And someone who has just come out with a bachelor degree and a specialization course (tied to business)?

I ask because I live in North Italy...one of the biggest cities and definitely the one with the "most working" economy...here the cost of living is pretty high, but real wagers are definitely low...and so people ends up financing enterprises since they cannot have that margin of independence that is usually thought of as the meaning of any job.

With a bachelor degree and specialization courses you just studied to get a almost non-existing wager and be offered ludicrous "stages" which are just a full-work without being recognized (and paid) as such...sometimes I think I should have been taken a "smarted education course" and may be end up as a drug dealer or a robber...for that's a job for all seasons!

I was wondering if it's the same in all the World or if it's a situation which is just so for my Country...
Jashkar

Municipal regulation of wage levels began in some towns in 1524. Later, the Trade Boards Act of 1918 made a large number of trades subject to minimum wages (which varied from trade to trade). These rules were repealed during the Thatcher era. A national minimum wage was introduced for the first time by Tony Blair's Labour government. The current minimum wage in the UK for adults aged 22 or older is £4.85 or approximately $9, as compared with $5.15 in the US. Despite a much higher minimum wage, the UK has lower unemployment than the US.

Tony Blair has a lot to answer for ... bring back Maggie!

I live and work in Dublin, in the IT sector.
The cost of living in Dublin is extremely high due to the horrendous rents, but if you're sharing a house/apartment, it's managable.

I never had any difficulties affording rent, food and a few extras on the side from my wage. And companies are constantly looking for new employees...

I live just outside Glasgow, Scotland and I moved into my first appartment with a friend when I was 19 (I'm 28 now). I worked in a store back then, and even though the wages were't too good my rent was pretty low and apart from booze and fags I didn't really spend money on luxuries, so I was pretty comfortable.

Depending on where you look, I'd say it's still possible to do that around Glasgow (not in the centre though). If I hadn't been fond of a weekend partying I probably could've lived comfortably without sharing, and without making too many sacrifices.

In the UK, I think it's too easy to get by on government benefits alone. Sadly, many people, especially in Scotland, shirk their social responsibilities and are content to sponge off tax payers for the rest of their lives. It's a common phenomenon here to have girls repeatedly fall preganant just so they can get a free place to stay, and then basically live off the child benefits. It seems that if you know how to play the system, you don't HAVE to work at all.

Well, I can´t say from my own experiance, but I think so. My brother makes up to 20,000 SEK/month after tax, and he can afford his rent, food and clothes easily. He saves about 8,000 SEK/month, and he buys a LOT of clothes, and they arent cheap (he even buys from Italy every once in a while). Then again, his rent isn´t exactly high, and he lives in a small town.
My sister, on the other hand, lives in Stockholm, in a pretty pricy area, and she and her boyfriend have recently bought a house for 2,050,000 SEK, and she is a kindergarten teacher while her boyfriend works as a salesman in a mall.

In your Country the average wage of a beginning worker is enough to :
- Pay the rent of a little apartment...or may be paying 1/2 rent by sharing it
with another person?
- Eat for the full month?
- Have a little entertainment (may be a cinema or a little one-day-travel by
train per week)?
- Keep enough money to have an hedge of independence for medicines, clothes and times of lack of work?

It's common for a worker just starting out, especially when he's still in school, to have to work much more than 40 hours a week to pay for the basics of life. I'm in that catagory, and have to work about 60-70 hours.

Do in your Country the "average joe" earn enough to do all these things from his beginning work?
And someone who has just come out with a bachelor degree and a specialization course (tied to business)?

Once you earn your degree, things change. Suddenly, you're not living paycheck to paycheck anymore. You can get a real job with a real income.

See, here's the thing about America; If you work hard enough, you can get to the point where you're financially secure, no matter where you started from.

Thank you for the infos, guys :) ...so I guess the absurdity of working to "finance" a corporate and useless universities with your parents' hard-earned savings is something just happens in my Country... :rolleyes: ...not that I'm too happy, but at least I could thank goodness it's not the same everywhere... :(

Lately, apart from my political view, I'm very very pissed off for this situation...I have a very good curriculum vitae for someone graduated just a year ago (a couple of stages, but I also have a master in addition to graduation and I know a lot of things...many kinds of accounting, IAS, a lot of applications, quality management rules and even a lot of different ERPs) and I'm pretty good at the kind of job I've specialized for*, but here's insanely hard to find a real job with a wager decent enough to live by...
Jashkar

* = Actually at the end of recent stage I was offered...another stage!!
And the "wager" they gave me not just wasn't enough to live by
(obviously, being a bloody stage), but it'd been used up to advance
expences to go to customers (and it was a job taking up 10 hours a day
by standard...)!!
I refused for definitely none'd call that a "bargain"...even though they
wanted me badly...that's why I say I'm good at my kind of job...

P.S.: I think from what I've hinted you could understand why I'm so angry...

When I was in college, I would work over the summers making 10 dollars per hour. I had a decent size apartment and managed to feed myself and get drunk on cheap beer 4 or 5 nights a week and afford a few luxuries like cable tv, cds and books. I didn't have a car payment (I bought a cheap car that, amazingly, I still have four years later) but it was definitely liveable. Of course, if I had kids it would have been hard.

In the USA I live in a town with a low cost of living. I do however get paid about 3 to 4 dollars an hour more then the average wage. Same goes for my wife so we both have more then enough to cover essentials.

Well...actually here many people earn from 4 to 6 euro per hour...that's what a lot of people earns...

If one's lucky there's a fair share for (not very high) pension and for illness to add...here many things related to health are free, but other are paid for...but you get paid if you're ill...to a point.

...but in most cases that share is smaller.

A low rent for a little apartment in the city I live in would be around 700 euros, which is all those 4 euros per hour I've above said...most little apartments however are around 1000 euros...

Note that you could have bachelor degree and specialization course, but you still could be offered a stage which is in fact a "camouflaged work" for 3 euros per hour (but since you in truth work 10 hours or more a day, that's in truth 2.5 euros per hour or less) or a work of 6 euros per hour and may be you also have to advance expenses to go to customer if you've a "travelling" job...and they ask you "to dress so and so"...which could mean spending as high as hundreds of euros in a fucked dress...and they'd like you to have a car to work...and obviously you cannot buy or mantain a car with the above wagers!

And you've to add a lot of expenses for all prices doubled here with euro, while wagers were "faithfully converted" to be the same!!

Guys...I have to admit that sounds a bit weird to read that one could earn about 10 euros (if we made a 1 Euro :1 $ conversion) in a summer job...obviously may be living costs in the US are higher...but here you'd have to find a decent job in a bank to earn 9 euros per hour (which is 10 if you add that 8% kept for pension and illness)!! :eek:

This is the current situation here...in one of the richest part of North Italy.
Jashkar

Man, I would love to discuss this with you, but I have no idea what you are saying? I guess you mean to say you don't make enough money. Bummer.

Man, I would love to discuss this with you, but I have no idea what you are saying? I guess you mean to say you don't make enough money. Bummer.

No, "Mr. Nice"...it's not just my situation...it's the typical situation in this city for young people...

I'm not a beggar, "Mr. Nice"...if I were, I'd definitely earn more in this city! :D
Jashkar