Let's also remember that if you earn £50k but you pay £2500/month in rent and your average shopping basket costs £100 you are basically poorer than you think. That's the accurate way to measure IMO.
@@JM-yf3ol hmm yes I agree to an extent. In London if you earn £2500/month which is considered high compared to national average, you will most likely have to share a flat where you will pay 50% of your income and still have to share a shelf in the fridge with a stranger. I don’t think that’s any quality of life.
@@andreistoica2994 if you find a loving partner , then I would say it is a quality life. But sharing with friends or just strangers creeps me out. Thats for sure.
that's because successful self employed people turn the craft into a business, then pay themselves a small salary to pay less tax (where the figure comes from), while keeping every value in the company itself. If someone doesn't make it to that point they usually stop being self-employed in 1-2 years because they don't earn enough money/can't deal with the stress, etc. . You can see that these things can skew statistics and doesn't necessary represent reality.
If you take a look at time-series data for countries as they develop you will also see that wage/employed work increases and self-employed work decreases as countries develop. Most self-employed workers in poorer countries are mostly working in agriculture which is one of the least productive sectors.
Self employed in a fruitful economy is not comparable to self employed in a hand to mouth economy. One is because of a fruitful labour force, that enables diversity and the other is out of necessity.
Damien, I think you don’t know how good this video is. It took being self-employed for a few years to make me appreciate employment. I now love my job even when I’m not enjoying it! That stable pay check is everyting!
I'm not gonna lie and say I don't complain; but I make sure to look up and say *THANK YOU* every time I do.. its _so_ easy to be complacent or ungrateful.. working with the truly underprivileged will put things in perspective, quick..
Also, I'm sure everyone who has ever tried self employment will learn how hard running a business is, not too mention time consuming even when the task isn't hard. Starting the business is the easy bit, making it sustainable without needing to work 100 weeks is the real challenge.
Hi Damo. Awesome video. I’m a maths teacher with a Core Maths class in year 12 at a sixth form where they learn about interpreting stats and financial maths. This is such an entertaining video that I’ll be using it in my lesson tomorrow to show them how to tackle hard to answer questions with stats. I think this is fantastic and I always want to integrate healthy money talk into school because who else is gonna do it???
This is so cool! If you ever want me to pop down to your school and say hello just email me. I can talk through how I make the videos or whatever, my email is in the channel bio
My kids told me statistics are not given much focus in A-level anymore, where students are only taught the formulas to use without diving into each one fully, making it harder to grasp and to appreciate their power. That's a real shame as statistics is all around us. My favourite joke is that 42.6% of statistics quoted are made up on the spot. Including this one. The point is you can "prove" anything with statistics, you just have to present it how you want it. Start with a misleading hypothesis, ignore biases, include extreme cases, use a small sample, viola the UK's inflation is only 4%.
@@bigboldbicycle well Einstein said if you can't make your expertise accessible and understandable, you clearly don't know them well enough. A lot of maths teacher in the UK are not maths experts, we don't all have maths degrees. The A level requires very deep understanding of the material to teach it. So naturally, if you are teaching a course that you just barely know yourself, you make your students learn through rote memorisation. When you train to teach, one curriculum strand you have to pass is subject knowledge, but at the moment we're so desperate for teachers anyone can train to teach maths. I met an English teaching trainee, who graduated in law and hadn't sat in a maths lesson for 10 years who passed the subject knowledge test for a maths teaching training course.
The self-employed "myth" really hit me when I visited Mexico a few months ago, and everyone you buy something from on the street is "self-employed" but they are there from 7am to 11pm, selling food or bags or knock-off branded items for like 30 pesos ($1.80 US) and at least in Mexico City where there aren't AS many tourists like myself, I seemed to be the only one buying their stuff.
Moving from the U.S. to the U.K. I was surprised how many people in the UK are self employed and then I realised- in the US if you are self employed you largely don’t have health care. In the U.K. your healthcare is largely independent of your employer.
I genuinely caught myself trying to like this video multiple times throughout its runtime. You are pumping out really great content, with deep insights and really interesting take on finance. I've hit the bell some time ago and look forward to every upload.
This is why I enjoy your channel, the prefect balance of humour, memes and pure facts. Your video production just keeps getting better. Some very good points to think about in this one.
Damo, mate another stunner of a video, so many great takeaways from this one too. That correlation between self employed to employed, the Irish GDP situation that people totally misunderstand was exemplified very well. Data is the key thing and I love it. It might be a bit selfish but I've always wanted to UK series where we look to break down its key issues and show with data, see what the real issues are, and maybe some ideas to improve. I think we in the UK maybe other countries in the Western world are struggling with where we are and a changing global economy, we need a vision.
Completely agree Damien. The world's economy is skewed by outliers earnings in the top 1.2. The median earning calculation demonstrates that well. Appreciate the content.
So interesting self-employment is associated with being poor! Wow! Fascinating content as always 🤩 I’m going to start listening to Follow The Money as an audio book now too! Thank you 👌🏼
Working for others is also hard (trust me. I work in retail and I get a lot of abuse from both customers and management). The question is, do you want to work hard for others or do you want to work hard for yourself? Either way, you're going to be working hard.
the level of quality of this video both content and montage is astounding, and you're particularly clear, despite me not being a native english speaker. Glad the algorithm brought me to you!
Smashed it again Damian. Editing on top form, funny, informative and enticing. Keep going 👏🏼 In the near future I’m going to buy a super like as this content is top notch.
Thank you so much! This sort of feedback is enough. I just want to make finance content that is unique and has its own style on the platform. So as long as I am doing that, that is what matters
Great video as always Damien! As many have mentioned, the information about self employed is very interesting. From my point of view, the main difference is whether you are driven to do it (i.e. you have no other option and the result is probably below minimum wage) or you decided to do it on your own because you have a skillset for which the market pays more than your employer gives you. Another interesting way to compare salaries would be to correlate them (or more like cleansed by) with Actual individual consumption (AIC) or Purchasing power parity (PPP).
I agree, it was touched on in the video but yeah the choice vs no choice aspect to self -employment is key. "I've got a great business idea" vs "I'm facing barriers in all other options"
Yes there has been mate but i didn't want to go into it... They claimed the video which meant i couldn't edit out the small mistake. So yeah just been a whole mess. On to the next one
Smart lad, interesting analysis. Thanks for the eye opening remarks about self employment. It’s easy to feel downtrodden and depressed about the state of the working world but I ended the video feeling more privileged to have a 40-50k salary in the U.K.
New subscriber (channel and podcast) and this is the best one I’ve watched so far. Great blend of information, narrative and humour that’s really well produced.
I respect how you deliver the facts without going down the "HATE THE RICH" route. As a balance, I think you should also do a video on what percentage of tax people pay - for example, I heard the top 1% of UK earners pay like a third of our total tax?
This is true. The top 10% also pay over 50% of all tax. It makes you wonder about the other 50% and they are usually the ones moaning about taxing 'the rich' who ever they are. People like me feel rather angry at those that do. I say - show me how it's done - I pay more than enough. If the bottom half that can are to succeed, they need lower taxes and sensible regulation. Right now, those with nothing are locked out.
It’s a complex topic. My friends who are self employed are wealthier than me because they pay themselves the minimum wage for tax reasons, and then if they want to make big purchases, they pay dividends. Also, they can write off expenses like car payments, repairs, meals out, phone bills, etc.
But they are also normally claiming back VAT and getting corporation tax relief. Having worked for accountants dealing with many self employed most of them are much better off than when they were employed. That can be both financially and also work/life balance. The problem is when dodgy employers force staff to become self employed to save themselves cash but don’t increase the amount they pay.
That’s exactly the point. My partner officially has less salary than I do - but in reality he makes every month at least double if not 3 times more. It’s just the money we don’t access most of the time.
I think being employed and self employed simultaneously will and is the future trend. Gig economy, online businesses, side hustles. In a fruitful economy you can be both.
I have been self-employed as sole trader for 14 years now, since I was 22, in the construction sector. Yes, I could not take holidays as often as the employed ones - at least not in the early years. But now I feel that my skills are so demanded that I know I will always have a place to work, unless we have a massive recession. At the moment I am on a salary of £75k, based on my day rate, Mon to Fri -which I think it's decent. Also, recently received an offer to go as project lead on a site, which will be ongoing for the next 7 years - will I will not accept the offer without another day rate increase. But all this would have not happened without dedication, hard work, investing in myself and gaining the skill sets required to do my job - bare mind my first job in construction was site labourer. It's all about what your mindset is. What do you plan to do and stick with it. If you try to do too many things, you will end up not getting good at anything. Eventually I will get employed (as I have been offered the chance many times), but while I still can, I will carry on as self-employed, as currently for me the gain is higher than being employed.
4:10 Third Mainland Bridge - Lagos, Nigeria. Buhari promised 7M jobs when he came to power. In his 2 terms as President the population grew by about 35M. Let that sink in.
Makes perfect sense, you have to make your own way in the developing economies - Africans are the most enterprising people I've ever met. Excllent video Damien.
Brilliant video and I liked the pick of the song, £10 well spent. I like these new videos where you seem to have a more outward approach, a more philosophical look at the whole picture
i think quality of job is more important than whether you are self-employed or not. If you are low-skilled then you will have low wages whether you are employed, or self-employed. Further the security of low skilled jobs is negligible these days. it is not unknown for massive workforces to be laid off by text message these days. As a self-employed person I have a client base of around 80 companies. It really doesn't matter if a few go under or if I piss any of them off. I would have to be made "redundant" 80 times.
I’ll be moving to the UK from Australia early next year. I work for myself so it doesn’t really matter, but salaries are relatively similar from what I’ve researched so far in most industries. The biggest disparity is probably with tradesman, they are paid at a premium in Australia because of the lofty construction demand.
I'm surprised to read this. Most Aussies I speak to bang on about how wages are so great there. $50 an hour for pulling pints etc, and the minimum wage is high. Although those same people are living in a 5 person house share in Clapham so that always makes me sceptical that it's so great back home.
Salaries in every industry seem to be higher in Australia. The ones who go to U.K. generally do for the access to Europe and tend to come back. The lofty construction demand is actually incredible. At one point in Sydney and Melbourne had more cranes in the sky than the entire United States. It’s a growth machine in construction. And a crane operator is on $150k a year. A traffic sign holder is on $80k and requires no skill except holding a sign and managing boredom. And cost of living is comparable to U.K. but energy bills council tax etc are cheaper.
@@thesockdoctorr it’s only for a few years. Uk has non dom taxation incentives for the next couple years at least too so I can live pretty well while I’m there . Understanding that maybe for the average person it’s not the best decision
Ive lived in NZ for 6 years now, done a wide range of jobs but now in insurance for the past 3 years. And the pay here is way more than the UK. I earn 70k for an entry level positiion that requires no experience or qualifications... however - we do get taxed more than the UK and the fruit and veg costs over here are 2x sometimes 3x that of the UK. Only good thing UK has going for it is that you can fly to 25 different countries all for the price of a crate of beer. Our cheapest flights outside of NZ are Aussie or a pacific island - cheapest is $300. So holidays are restricted here. UK or Europe you can do 5-6 short trips away per year.
Hi Damien. Would it be interesting to compare jobs that are universal - say a behind the counter shop worker, working full time but take into consideration what the largest spend, possibly accommodation and what percentage that worker needs to divert to just keep a roof over their head. David, Galway, Ireland.
@@DamienTalksMoney ha ha. You and me gotta whole lot of history 😜😅😅.. We're in a long distance relationship now cos I've moved to Australia but you are gold (your videos) (so your mum doesn't panic 🤣)so I keep coming back for more..
The wealth pyramid is crazy lol. I live with my parents and am unemployed on benefits but because I have $100k savings in the bank I'm in the top 10% globally. Crazy how rich Europeans are compared to the rest of the world. Still can't afford a house though. I only have that money cus I get all my food from foodbanks and never spend money on anything lol.
Yeah mate even the poorest here are some of the wealthiest. But that’s when spending power comes into play I guess as some people who are ‘poor’ probably live better quality lives than us
No one can deny UK salary is high - but the cost of living is also so high that quality of life is decreasing rapidly, especially for Londoners with lower-than-median income.
In my case I was made redundant ( a background in electronics), then I retained in bookkeeping but alas ended up caring for my elderly parents. So I’m one of the missing workers (52 btw) and classed as unemployable and living off my savings. I keep looking for a side gig I can do in my spare time. Love your videos btw.
Fuck sake daimo, best video you’ve done so far. The bait and switch of what I thought I was going to watch and what new information I learned was excellent.
@DamienTalksMoney, it's a shame you missed out "disposable income" as one of the key indicators on how well off people in a country. Salary on-it's own doesn't mean anything if you live in an expensive city and your rent is $3000/m
hmmm there is one major issue with the self employed in the report, the reason they are close to minium wage is to keep down the cost income tax but then use the business to cover theere life styles .
I hope your clocking up the editing hours for all your videos Damo. That would be an interesting statistic in its own right lol. Thanks for a decent video and use of my limited time. Global median average wage lists can be manipulated so I always take them with a pinch of salt but nice to have an indication on where we stand in the grand scheme of things.
What an interesting watch. That entrepreneur stat is actually wild. Was chatting to a fella a few weeks ago who was right up himself telling me he was one. Wonder if he's making min-wage yet?
You are best placed to tell us why you decided to be self employed rather than work for an investment bank. I would like you to debunk these adverts on RU-vid that we see where you can make a living working 5 minutes a day trading. After all if this was true, wouldn't we all be doing this?
If you're going to be self employed, it needs to be (basically) the same as being an employee but paid more, i.e. self employed consultant, or scalable so you can make money from others working for you. The former is great if you have a valued skillset, the latter is much harder and more risky to achieve. I don't see why anyone goes into self-employment in other ways, like owning a shop, or bar. It's high risk, low reward. As an example, I'm an employee. I earn just over £1k a week. I hired a self employed contractor to my team, he's paid £84/hr. Yes, he doesn't get holidays, pension, etc, but for that uplift it's worth it. He's been with us full time for over a year now.
What really matters is not what you earn but what it will buy you in the local economy. In the UK I have enough to live comfortably. If I move to most of Africa or South Am,erica I could a live a wealthy lifestyle, but I choose to remain in the UK.
Everyone self employed i know in the UK, only gives themselves £12700 salary then take additional income via dividends etc plus alot dont declare cash payments for jobs/services. So data can be miss leading.
What's causing the correlation between poverty and self employment? Is it that modern economies don't foster startups, or that startups genuinely aren't as efficient at generating wealth? Is it cause or effect?
I wouldn’t always conflate self-employment with entrepreneurship. For years the UK made it relatively simple as a way of boosting your pay and dodging tax - almost always whilst under-reporting your income. I recall a joke that ‘the most ambitious entrepreneur in America wants to grow a global company and make a billion dollars - the most ambitious entrepreneur in the UK wants to grow a company enough to sell it to a global company, make a million dollars then retire early.’
