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I presume by your name that you are either from Brum or lived there for a long time. You chose to leave Birmingham. If London prices are truly so awful then you can choose to move back. It's not like Brum isn't in need of social workers too.
As for the crap about London weighting not existing, I refer you to this:
wage league table.
I lived in Birmingham for 10 years. I moved back to London because I got a job offer in London and its where my family are. Are you saying that I should have turned the job offer down? A job offer that kick started my career?
I never said that London weighting doesn't exist. Try actually reading my post next time.
P.S.
You don't understand averages either. My weekly (take home) wage is less than £300. My rent is 1/3 of that.
as someone who spent 60% of last year jobhunting in leeds, is living with a guy who spent the last 6 months jobhunting in leeds, and having 5 best friends STILL jobhunting in leeds, i think i'm in a position to say that no, there aren't lots of jobs out there for lots more than that. not that that is what this is about at all...
but then i'm from london, so obviously i don't know anything about it.
well that says it all, for me, really.
i know a fair amount of people LIVING on that wage. raising the threshold for stamp duty is helping them out and it's helping people like them out.
that's the whole point.
Why people feel justified to rant about something they obvioulsy know nothing about i.e. what it is like to live in such and such a place is beyond me........
Kermit your argument is as valid as that which a corporate stooge might give when defending crap pay or conditions
"know one forces them to work here"
i.e. one of the shittest arguments in existence...............
Anyway I am pretty sure that even with London weighting if there’s a teacher from London and a teacher from Newcastle the one from Newcastle will be in real terms much richer.
Although I’d say people who get it just as tough as Londoners and perhaps tougher are those outside London but still in the South East. In many parts of the South East outside London the cost of living is pretty similar to London and yet private and public sector wages are less than London. In retail and stuff London wages seem just a bit higher than the rest of the UK but just outside London in the rest of the SE it's not much better than the rest of the UK.
London/SE wages no way reflect the higher costs here. For once I'm finding myself generally agreeing with Blagsta.
The out of work friends you mention, can you clairfy something for me, using your experiences from last year, if you wish for example:
Are they simply unable to find ANY work, whatsoever and so are claiming the JSA?
OR
Are they choosing not to work as they're holding out for "the right position"?
I find it hard to accept that somebody is unable to locate ANY job whatsoever.
well, if the idea of raising the stamp duty threshold was to help out first time buyers, then the result is that it only helps out first time buyers in certain parts of the country- a large chunk of the South does not feel the benefit. I think this is the main point of contention.
Given, that a number of people have pointed out that London/south east wages are not amazingly higher on the whole, compared to the rest of the country, even with weighting, then does it not show that the first time buyers there are probably in a worse position than up North. I have found that in Birmingham, the wages are not that much higher (if at all in a lot of cases) than further up North, and house prices here have risen a great deal, and therefore a lot of FTB's are pretty much priced out of the market too.
As, I and others have said earlier, stamp duty isn't going to be the deal breaker when buying a house anyway, but I think the way in which the original post from Kermit attacked Londoners, as if they were all much better off anyway, came off as brash and rather mis-informed IMO.
For God's sake - will you and Kermit bloody read what's been written! The whole of the South East (if not the South) of England is "suffering" from very high house prices, not just London. This has been stated several times now, not least by myself.
As for whether or not LONDON should be taken into account, again I will use the SOUTH OF ENGLAND in my answer as a more accurate example, although London does weigh heavily in this due to the size of the bloody place.
Firstly, just to pick a bloody big hole in what you typed:
"when London prices are not average."
Where the hell IS average? Fair enough, London prices are a lot higher, but Leeds, Manchester and the other major cities are now not too far behind. Fair enough, the further North you go, the cheaper they generally get. If the average house price is £162,000 - then how do you work out that "below average" houses (price wise) should fall under this £120,000 theshold? The wages (broken record) ARE NOT THAT BLOODY DIFFERENT for MOST people around the country! Sure, as Kermit's wholly inappropriate link shows, London has the highest average earnings - but look at the areas, sweet children (yes, I am being patronising here, Kermit) - Westminster, Camden, Islington - are these not the areas of the rich and famous? In general, yes! Many many houses in these areas are well over the half million £ mark (several million in many cases) - hardly "affordable" OR what is really under discussion here, sure there are cheaper houses there (still expensive though) and some not so nice bits of these areas BUT...). What about the rest of London? Exactly. Also, and I found this pretty funny, and thought this would give you guys something to stick in your pipes:
"While there are clear areas of below-average earnings, the cost of living in these places is often lower. In fact, housing affordability was 30% better in the lowest-paid areas relative to the highest-paid areas"
This is a quote from the paragraph directly above Kermit's pretty much irrelevant table. This completely supports what the seemingly level headed half of the debate are saying! No matter what any London Weighting brings, the added cost of everything else MORE than cancels out that few quid extra in your pocket. So, using the above as a base to work on - would you really deny people the "tax break" just because of where you live when they're actually worse off than you? I wouldn't say that was fair.
For other reasoning:
The most densely poputated area of the UK is the South East. Correct? Yes.
Much of the housing stock in this area (or ALL of it in London) is well above this £120,000 level YET there are still many MANY workers on "low paid" jobs. Doing the maths - why should they "lose out" just because of where they live!? I don't think they should. I feel that if something like this is to be extended to "help" somebody, then it should be extended to "help" everybody else - not a ludicrously low figure that barely helps half of the FTB in the country!
G.
And now...
If that's the job he has, then that's the job he has! If he ain't happy - then get another one. Or, hold on! To use his own thinking - if he can't find more work... MOVE TO ANOTHER AREA! Now - doesn't THAT make a good argument?!?! He doesn't HAVE to stay there...?! Does he?! Exactly.
To expand on that - the equivelant wage in London would probably be around £8/hr. Woo - fair enough, that may be a chunk more, but in perspective, his rent would probably triple, and the rest of his costs would go up accordingly. So - he'd be far worse off. Imagine you're a FTB and you manage through whatever means to be able to afford a house - then you're stung by the stamp duty, simply because the houses EVERYWHERE around where you live are above the magic £120,000... You'd be pretty miffed.
Life ain't a bed of roses, but you make of it what you make of it.
Oh - and I am calm. Just putting some points across before I go to the gym.
Heh - and rent? Aye - it's not cheap but you pays as you must!
...and please - no more with this "they don't have to stay in the South" argument. It's just not carrying water.
If he's not complaining, that's fair enough. I still stand by my comments as to highlight if somebody *was* unhappy - using his thinking, it'd be "easier" to uproot your life and shift somewhere else as they "don't have to stay" somewhere.
*I* had to leave all my family, friends etc for work when moving to London, there were just not the contracts I was looking for. It was and is all fine - no problems and was happy to leave! Many people can't do that and shouldn't HAVE to do that.
How about your "buy to let up North" idea when they can only just afford the rent in London?
My rent is £100/week.
get your head out of your arse
G.
If your pay and conditions were cut do you think ti would be fair for your manager to simply say that you choose to work their, that you can go elsewhere if you don't like it?
Why don't you actually read the thread? Or do you want me to go through it and point out exactly where you've ignored my points, written total crap and generally talked out of your arse? I will if you want.