Coronavirus - A pale horse,4 men and ....beer

[sionascaig]

I've seen a few comments on the news about how poorly nurses and teachers are paid in the UK. I assumed it was garbage so I had a look.

In Australia ordinary nurses and teachers reach the top pay scale in 6-7 years. In my state once a nurse reaches this point they take home £35,461 after tax (plus $3,742 pension contribution). A teacher £39,652 after tax (plus £4,309 pension contribution).

From my quick search, the equivalent nurse in the UK (outside of London) earns £24,042 after tax and teacher £31,175 after tax.

Is cost of living that much cheaper in the UK to explain the otherwise weird discrepancy? The exchange rate is also fairly unfavourable at the moment.

I'd be surprised if cost of living in UK is less than AUS. £24k in the UK is not sufficient to be self supporting (if you want to live on your own & buy a flat for example). My son was doing a backpacking trip of Australia last year and picked up a "bar" job in melbourne which paid $48k plus pension benefits - you wont get something like that in the UK !

[Archery1969]

I've seen a few comments on the news about how poorly nurses and teachers are paid in the UK. I assumed it was garbage so I had a look.

In Australia ordinary nurses and teachers reach the top pay scale in 6-7 years. In my state once a nurse reaches this point they take home £35,461 after tax (plus $3,742 pension contribution). A teacher £39,652 after tax (plus £4,309 pension contribution).

From my quick search, the equivalent nurse in the UK (outside of London) earns £24,042 after tax and teacher £31,175 after tax.

Is cost of living that much cheaper in the UK to explain the otherwise weird discrepancy? The exchange rate is also fairly unfavourable at the moment.

Public sector workers in the UK have traditionally never been paid a good wage. Why ?, probably because compared to Australia there are so many of them over here. There are roughly 6 million of them compared to 2 million in Australia and giving them all a pay rise would cost allot of dosh.

The majority of people in the armed forces over here are paid less than the minimum wage when you take into account that effecively there are on call 24/7.

[Dallas]

For the last 11 days the number of deaths in Englands hospitals have now been lower than they were on the day of lockdown and still falling slowly

[Kafkaesque]

I've seen a few comments on the news about how poorly nurses and teachers are paid in the UK. I assumed it was garbage so I had a look.

In Australia ordinary nurses and teachers reach the top pay scale in 6-7 years. In my state once a nurse reaches this point they take home £35,461 after tax (plus $3,742 pension contribution). A teacher £39,652 after tax (plus £4,309 pension contribution).

From my quick search, the equivalent nurse in the UK (outside of London) earns £24,042 after tax and teacher £31,175 after tax.

Is cost of living that much cheaper in the UK to explain the otherwise weird discrepancy? The exchange rate is also fairly unfavourable at the moment.

Public sector workers in the UK have traditionally never been paid a good wage. Why ?, probably because compared to Australia there are so many of them over here. There are roughly 6 million of them compared to 2 million in Australia and giving them all a pay rise would cost allot of dosh.

The majority of people in the armed forces over here are paid less than the minimum wage when you take into account that effecively there are on call 24/7.

65-ish million people in the UK with 6 million in the public sector vs 25-ish in Australia and 2 million doesn't exactly scream that's the reason.

Are the nurses in Andorra stacking up all their cash because it's so cheap to hand out since there's so few of them

[Archery1969]

I've seen a few comments on the news about how poorly nurses and teachers are paid in the UK. I assumed it was garbage so I had a look.

In Australia ordinary nurses and teachers reach the top pay scale in 6-7 years. In my state once a nurse reaches this point they take home £35,461 after tax (plus $3,742 pension contribution). A teacher £39,652 after tax (plus £4,309 pension contribution).

From my quick search, the equivalent nurse in the UK (outside of London) earns £24,042 after tax and teacher £31,175 after tax.

Is cost of living that much cheaper in the UK to explain the otherwise weird discrepancy? The exchange rate is also fairly unfavourable at the moment.

Public sector workers in the UK have traditionally never been paid a good wage. Why ?, probably because compared to Australia there are so many of them over here. There are roughly 6 million of them compared to 2 million in Australia and giving them all a pay rise would cost allot of dosh.

The majority of people in the armed forces over here are paid less than the minimum wage when you take into account that effecively there are on call 24/7.

65-ish million people in the UK with 6 million in the public sector vs 25-ish in Australia and 2 million doesn't exactly scream that's the reason.

Are the nurses in Andorra stacking up all their cash because it's so cheap to hand out since there's so few of them

So why do you think public sector workers have always been under valued and under paid in the UK, its been the same for many decades regardless of which party was in power ?

[sionascaig]

For the last 11 days the number of deaths in Englands hospitals have now been lower than they were on the day of lockdown and still falling slowly

Infection rate is 5 times higher though...

[Naffman]

For the last 11 days the number of deaths in Englands hospitals have now been lower than they were on the day of lockdown and still falling slowly

Infection rate is 5 times higher though...

New cases are well down too

[Kafkaesque]

Public sector workers in the UK have traditionally never been paid a good wage. Why ?, probably because compared to Australia there are so many of them over here. There are roughly 6 million of them compared to 2 million in Australia and giving them all a pay rise would cost allot of dosh.

The majority of people in the armed forces over here are paid less than the minimum wage when you take into account that effecively there are on call 24/7.

65-ish million people in the UK with 6 million in the public sector vs 25-ish in Australia and 2 million doesn't exactly scream that's the reason.

Are the nurses in Andorra stacking up all their cash because it's so cheap to hand out since there's so few of them

So why do you think public sector workers have always been under valued and under paid in the UK, its been the same for many decades regardless of which party was in power ?

I don't have sufficient insight into the inner workings of British politics to give any sort of qualified answer.

My simple point was that, as much as I don't know the answer, I'm fairly confident that it isn't found by looking at something as basic as absolute numbers (in employment). The UK has veered much more to one side with regards to public vs private sectors and ideological starting point than most western European countries, and I suspect the answer is hiding somewhere in that dynamic, but the finer points of how the, relative to other countries, salary numbers got to there, I won't pretend to have the faintest of ideas about.

[Dallas]

For the last 11 days the number of deaths in Englands hospitals have now been lower than they were on the day of lockdown and still falling slowly

Infection rate is 5 times higher though...

New cases are well down too

Infection rate (or 'R' number) is supposed to be between 0.7-1.0 now, compared to 3.0+ at the time of lockdown

[Atho55]

I try and watch the daily briefings but some days the bods roled out to actually give it come across at least to me with varying levels of confidence, standing at the podium and addressing the viewers.

Dominic Raab and Jonathan Van Tam I find particularly good.

It would be my preference to have the same bods do it every day too.

[Dallas]

I try and watch the daily briefings but some days the bods roled out to actually give it come across at least to me with varying levels of confidence, standing at the podium and addressing the viewers.

Dominic Raab and Jonathan Van Tam I find particularly good.

It would be my preference to have the same bods do it every day too.

I've stopped watching them now, I prefere to capture and look at the data i can find and draw my own conclusions rather than listening to the sound bites - like the peak on 8th April, it was clear by around the 15th certainly by the 20th from the govt data that was the day it peaked, yet it wasn't officially said on the daily press statement until around 6th/7th May by Boris

[Derek27]

I've stopped watching them now,

Gets boring but I still admire those wooden wall panels and doors.

[sionascaig]

Infection rate is 5 times higher though...

New cases are well down too

Infection rate (or 'R' number) is supposed to be between 0.7-1.0 now, compared to 3.0+ at the time of lockdown

The R number can be a bit misleading on its own though - its a measure of whether the number of infections is increasing or decreasing but doesn't really tell you much about number of cases already in population - I was thinking of the number of new infections then & now... If 90% of the population had the virus the R number would be very low indeed as no new people to infect!

[Derek27]

I can hear two people in the neighbourhood clapping. It was a nice gesture to begin with but I think it's getting a bit worn now.

[Naffman]

I can hear two people in the neighbourhood clapping. It was a nice gesture to begin with but I think it's getting a bit worn now.

Yeah the first week it was a nice gesture but after that it just seems to be about protecting your image on the street