Credit Crisis Survey - Ctrl.Alt.Shift

Everyone's got money problems! And don't we all know it. However, since coming back from reporting in the Democratic Republic of Congo, I've come to realise just how much lives in our Western world really do evolve around money. In the DRC, every penny counts - money buys food rations, which in turn, keeps families alive a bit longer; there's limited (if any at all) materials to be materialistic.



I won't stand on my high horse and claim from now on I'll never treat myself again in the January sales, besides, as Biggie put it, all the cash in the world doesn't come without mo problems. But I wondered how much the youth of our nation knew of the value of a buck, and if the state in the DRC could widen their perspectives. Here's my report on the credit crisis for Ctrl.Alt.Shift:

Vox Pops: Money, Money, Money
Credit crisis, inflation, recession, bankruptcy... money = debt... It’s a vicious cycle that’s got most adolescents screaming “I’m skint, I’m broke, I’m poor son!”


Obviously the money game varies from country to city players, retail workers to the corporate levels. Still, let’s take it down to the basics: how much money do we need to be happy? It is evident that much of our culture has evolved with the mentality to work and expand, less about being stable and more about being able to indulge in pricey luxuries – I mean, do you go large in McD’s when you could go standard, or do you ever buy two of the same clothing items but in two different colours?

More often than not, we buy what we want, not what we need.

Many would complain about our national minimum wage of £5.73 per hour, but surely that’s enough to live on: bearing in mind I was told in Congo that the average wage for a worker there is around 20 pence PER DAY! Over 15 days, not a single Congolese man or woman complained about having just enough to buy bread and perhaps some luxury items of rice and plantain for the week’s worth of feasts.

So how would our youth survive on rations? We took to the streets of London to ask the following:

Do you know what the national minimum wage is? And what would you like it to be?
What is the minimum amount of money you could live on per week?
And finally, the average Congolese worker gets paid 20 pence a day. How would you handle living on such expenses?

Gulcin, 24, Holborn:
"I'm guessin' the minimum wage is around £6 or £7 an hour. Ideally though I'd like it to be around £10. I spend around £150 per week on food, shopping for clothes and transport. And as for 20 pence a day, that's crazy, that's just not possible to live on."

Danny, 18, south-east London:
"I think the minimum wage is around a fiver. It should be about £6.50. I spend roughly £300 a week, maybe a little less, for going out, rent, travel and general socialising. If had only 20 pence a day, I just wouldn't eat, I don't think I'd survive. You'd need to go out and find more work."

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