What is a decent wage?

In the current climate with so many people running the risk of losing their jobs or those without jobs finding it harder to find work I wonder what salaries people would view as low, medium and excessive.

A low wage would need to be based on the minimum wage which in the UK is £5.73 an hour. So if you worked a 35 hour week your weekly wage before tax would be just over £200 and for a year it would only be £10,429.

According to National Statistics the average wage in 2008 was £479 a week which would suggest that £25,000 a year would be a decent wage.

I would guess that anything over £60,000 a year is excessive but at the end of the day it depends now just on how much you earn but also on how much you spend.

For example if you are a teenager staying with your parents £11,000 a year may seem a lot but if you earn the same and have to pay a mortgage, look after children etc it suddenly doesn't appear to be very much at all. Similarly if you earn £30,000 and have a big mortgage, children to look after, and a lot of expenses you will feel that £30,000 is nowhere near enough.

I suppose at the end of the day is we all spend what we earn and even those on excessive salaries will find ways to spend their wages.