Not that I disagree, but the opinion is coming from a very specific view point. If the kids had strong educations, would they be okay getting paid £10 an hour / £16k a year.
It's not at all dissimilar to walking into a conference of learned and decorated economists, and being disappointed that only a handful know how to administer First Aid.
I would have thought Mrs White might recognise the limitations of her data, as a scholar would, given her Economics degree from Cambridge and her Masters in the same, gained at UCL.
Presumably, John Lewis has an application & interview process which would have been successfully navigated by the people is talking about.
Methinks her motives are not perhaps not pure.
Is that terrible in the UK? That's like $14 an hour and large swaths of Americans are expected to live on that with much shittier welfare than the UK.
Sources: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_resu...
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/100214/what-cost-li...
In other words, almost all statistics on cost of living do not take into account differences between countries in the ease of getting money.