Today is King Charles’s birthday. The man turns 74 years old today. This is his first birthday as monarch, and he has no public events planned, meaning he’s spending the day privately. Perhaps his birthday explains why the Telegraph decided to publish this story, about how generous King Charles is giving away bonuses to staffers to help them with the cost of living crisis. This is the same King Charles who inherited a vast kingdom and assets worth billions.
The King’s household staff are set to receive a bonus of up to £600 to help them cope with the cost of living crisis, it has been reported. The bonuses, to be paid on top of this month’s salary, will amount to tens of thousands of pounds and will come from the King’s private income.
Staff earning less than £30,000 a year will receive £600 in a one-off payment. Those on between £30,000 and £40,000 will receive £400, and those who are paid between £40,000 and £45,000 will receive £350, said The Sun. It is understood that no taxpayers’ money is being used in the payments.
“The King is giving money out of his own pocket to the lowest earners working for the household to help them cope with the cost of living crisis,” a source told The Sun newspaper. “It is being given on a sliding scale, with those most in need and on lower wages getting the most money. It is to target where it is needed the most in the Royal Household and reflects the reality of the economic situation the country faces.”
It is understood that applicable staff whose income is derived from the Privy purse will receive their payments from the Privy purse, those paid via the sovereign grant will receive the extra money from the sovereign grant and those paid by the Royal Collection Trust will be paid via the trust.
In June, a royal source said the Royal family was “extremely conscious” of the crisis hitting people’s pockets, with the King said to be paying “very close attention” to the issue.
“The King is very much aware of the soaring energy bills people are facing and worried about the economic wellbeing of loyal palace staff and doing what he can,” added the source. According to the royal accounts for 2020-21, there are 491 full-time equivalent staff across the royal palaces paid for from the Sovereign Grant, with the wage bill coming to £23.7 million.
The King employs 101 staff at Clarence House. His coronation in May is expected to be scaled down amid the cost of living crisis.
I’m enjoying the weird way the Telegraph has framed the information – I mean, sure, it’s nice that Charles is giving staffers a bonus to help with their bills, and at least he’s “in touch” with what is happening to regular people. But what’s going unsaid is that Charles hasn’t actually streamlined in his transition to king, as he always promised to have a lean, mean monarchy machine. The bulk of his mother’s staffers remain in Buckingham Palace and the bulk of Charles’s former PoW staffers remain employed at St. James’s Palace and Clarence House. Charles is still insanely “overstaffed.” He must be worried that doing mass layoffs before Christmas will look even worse.
Photos courtesy of Chris Jackson / Avalon and ISABEL INFANTES / Avalon.
The bare minimum but I’m sure those staffers are grateful for it.
He’s doing the whole aware of the cost of living crises better than the Wales.
Isn’t this the same Charles who did big cutbacks of staff during the pandemic? Jesus
And yet he still has a whopping 101 employees at his home. What do all those people do?
Sell stories to the tabloids.
For almost 500 staff I feel he could have been a bit more generous?!
It really is a pittance. An insult. Those should be bonuses in the thousands, not hundreds. He can afford it.
This man is no Joe Biden.
He has access to a vast fortune. He could afford to play his employees a living wage.
He has staff making less than 30,000? That seems crazy to me. If you work for the King of England, it seems like you would make something more than minimum wage. Aren’t they supposed to be the absolute best staff with the best people? Also, how does anyone live in an expensive city like London on 30k?
That is crazy low. Is it part time? Does the job include housing? How can anyone live on so little, especially in London? Why would anyone do that job? Especially given the recent stories about how badly Charles treats the staff. It doesn’t make sense.
They justify the low wages as “after working us you’ll be able to go to whatever job you want asking for whatever salary you want”. Don’t know how true that is but yes that is the justification.
Even if it’s true I still think they should pay their staff more. It’s not like they’re struggling for cash!
They are renowned for paying staff poorly, as they seem to think the privilege of working for them is worth more than a fair salary.
Many many people are struggling to live on 30k in London, it’s very difficult. I earn slightly above that and still receive a significant amount in benefits payments as a single parent, would be impossible to survive without it. I imagine many of Charles’ staff are also in receipt of benefits which just seems a bit wrong. That definitely won’t be a part time salary they are referring to though! Wages have been stagnating and decreasing for years, that’s defo full time.
I do not mean to be insensitive about your plight…
…But do you think you could quit your job and go work for the King? It’s the same pay and would be worth it’s weight in gossip gold. Do it for us.
(No, but seriously, I’m glad you are able to get social benefits to help, but your wages are criminal. The “Western” world should be ashamed of itself.)
Thatsnotokay – haaahaha it is very tempting for the gossip! The value of being able to share the tea in the celebitchy comments is worth considering a career change for….
The shock of the commenters here that the royals would have staff earning ‘only’ 30k is a perfect piece of perspective to illustrate how bad things have got…. I was surprised they have any staff they deign to pay ‘as much as’ 30k. I believe the median salary in the uk is about 27k, last time I checked! To illustrate further, my old colleagues before I was promoted view me as some sort of high flyer raking it in, because compared to their 21k …. it’s just all so f*cked.
First of all most domestic and junior staffers earn between £20-25K, which is even more dire and NO you CANNOT live on £30k in London, and that’s even if you lived in Govt rent controlled Housing.
£30k annual salary with a MANDATORY 8% pension contribution (the law) in London = £1,850 take home BASIC pay without any further buy in deductions for options like dental, life insurance etc.
A studio or flat share in London zones 2-3 will set you back AT LEAST £800+ per month PLUS bills (if you get lucky). Then add on a zone 1-3 travelcard = @ £175 per month and about £200 for food and treating yourself to 1-2 meals out a month. You’d be lucky if you can break even at the end of the month after paying for food, clothing etc.
Move further out to the burbs and your savings for housing are eaten up by transport costs on an unreliable transport network.
Which is why I’d say 50% of these Royal Household jobs are nepotism connections and chancers hoping to make it big down the line by leveraging the RF name and selling the odd article to the Daily Fail.
The first thing I thought was some staffers make 30k. They should be embarrassed to publish that.
I would absolutely out money on the fact that they have plenty of staff earning significantly less than that! Minimum wage is well below that.
Some of the staff live in quarters at the palaces and are provided with food, but not all.
Exactly what I was thinking! Just give them all raises so they are getting more every paycheque because why would you work for less than 30,000 in the most expensive city to live in a cost of living crisis? Maybe he should streamline and pay his workers a living wage.
Why doesn’t he just pay his staffers an actual living wage? The man is worth billions! Thirty thousand pounds, even converted to Canadian dollars, wouldn’t get you very far living in Vancouver or Toronto where rents are insane, gas is over 2 bucks a liter, and grocery chains are reporting enormous profits while food prices skyrocket. And before anyone suggests living somewhere cheaper and commuting…people do. But it’s Canada and the distances between where the better paying jobs are, and affordable housing is, is hours away.
And the traffic in Toronto makes an even a relatively close commute long in terms of time. I’ve been stuck in stop and go traffic all the way from Hamilton, even in off peak hours.
I have inlaws in Toronto, and we usually stay with my SiL who lives just north of downtown, so taking Jarvis off the Gardiner expw. No matter what time we drive, the traffic going into Toronto is insane! We’ve been in the morning, at night, and it’s always crazy.
The DVP is also called the Don Valley Parking lot.
And when the Ontario line starts construction part of Queen will be closed between Bay and Yonge for years which will cause more chaos in the downtown core. I just pray it gets finished within the time and not drags out for over a decade like the Eglinton crosstown that is still going on, a decade later.
If the payments are through the privy purse, the sovereign grant and the royal collection trust, how is it out of his own pocket? Is it just awkward wording or a scam to claim he is personally paying?
That stuck out to me too. I think it meant the payments are going to go through those entities, and he’ll reimburse them? But I’m not sure. Like if someone on the outside wanted to give me a work bonus so it came through the component that does the federal paychecks.
(this never happens to me lol.)
The kick backs this man gets via the duchies, let alone what the government gives him, are enormous. He and William are swimming around in unearned money that should be taxed. It’s a gesture that shows he is not totally removed from what’s going on, but it means bugger all in real terms set against London costs. It’s better than nothing, tho. A wage increase would mean far more. They pay pittance, don’t they?
The man has never worked a single day earning £ at a real job in his entire life, so no matter how they try to twist the accounting, at the end of the day, everything these people have is ALL from the taxpayers.
£600 for a £30,000 per annum job in the City of London (when the staff should be paid at least £45K to £50K to survive the cost of living crisis) will do nothing but make a small dent in…a utility bill? A season’s rail ticket?
I mean, it’s a nice gesture but I’m sure the staff would better appreciate a salary increase.
Not to worry, this will be a tax deductible amount worded in such a way that he will be not be out much$.
For anything Charles does to be tax deductible he would have to pay taxes, any tax payments Charles does are voluntary. He doesn’t even have to file income related documents so there is no way to verify that the voluntary payment is in any way comparable to what he would actually have to pay in taxes
It is a gesture at best. Notice that he makes certain to PR it all over the place.
It’s a nice enough gesture and I’m sure the staff will appreciate it because it’s better than nothing.
but it still feels really hollow and empty to me. Like you just inherited millions, maybe billions, tax free and you’re giving out 600 pounds to your staff that make less than 30k a year?
It’s not much, but better than the Wails doing nothing and Kate stepping out with a new outfit that could easily cover the heating bill increases for several staff members.
Word. They’ve got an entire duchy at their disposal (that Chuck made sure was making millions for him), and still…crickets.
Charles celebrated his birthday by appointing himself Ranger of Windsor Great Park. If he really wanted to help his staff he would increase their salary instead of giving them a one-off “bonus”. Also does this mean that staff don’t get bonuses for Christmas? I don’t understand why anybody would want to work for the Royal Family.
One year the queen gave all her staff a potted plant and the next it was a book token. The queen mother was so tight fisted she thought even this was too much. That gives you an idea of what it’s like to work for them. It’s almost as if money is dirty and beneath them, and this is understood by their staff but, in reality, it’s a front for being money grabbing tight arses.
The Queen Mother also consistently spent more money than she actually had, Charles and the Queen had to pay off her overdraft more than once. When she died the overdraft was still in the millions, any wealth was in assets not cash
A book token???? I used to give my kids’ school bus drivers $10 gift cards … and more to the school secretaries and teachers.
Unless it was a token to claim a first edition Dickens or something from the royal stash, that is appalling!
And again I am shocked that there aren’t more leaks from staff members! Considering there are so many people working for these useless billionaires for such low pay, you’d think more of them would anonymously (and cheerfully) sell stories to the tabloids.
So my takeaway from this is that the monarchy pays a significant number of its employees poverty wages.
I’m assuming this lovely little bonus will be taxed, too.
I treated myself to John Oliver’s segment on the monarchy during lunch today. It was a little masterpiece. THAT should be The Crown’s disclaimer because no matter how many people watch LWT, it’s not even close to Netflix numbers. I would laugh until Christmas.
Chuck – a man worth billions – is giving his staff less than I got from my employer during Covid. Tax free. Could they have given us more? Sure. But I’m paid well. More than a royal staffer apparently. WTF?
I watched this morning – it was hilarious and painful all at the same time.
Did you all catch the sneaky little line of “up to £600?”
Up. To.
Abolish the monarchy.
he could give his staffers 60,000 quid a piece and not even feel it and we’re supposed to be all “aww… King Chucklefuck is a decent guy after all!” because he’s giving them 600?
Those are starvation wages and a few hundred pounds is an insult. Unionize.
Will they have to pay taxes on this?
Good question. They probably will, as they were not anointed by god to be tax-exempt like their boss was.
This, my friends, is trickle down economy for you. Look! He’s giving low income people some of his own hoarded funds. What a swell guy! He could well afford to do more and to live with less himself, but his pride/status/position/human nature won’t allow that. People with more don’t typically give much to others in need (relative to their wealth). Bezos can give 100 million away and he’s still a billionaire. Tax the rich and expand social programs. It’s the only way to really get money to people who need it since the wealthy can’t be trusted to do that on their own.
My monthly bills have gone up £800 pm. That is a LOT of money for me, on my current salary. So a £600 one-off bonus seems a bit skint to me
Also want to point out that *if* the stories about Charles having plans (according to The Crown) to oust his mother circa 1991/92 — that would have made the Queen somewhere btw 63 and 65
Yet here we are with a King who ascended the throne barely 2 months shy of his 74th birthday
Careful KC3. Your son may also be thinking the same thing
If we can’t at least abolish the monarchy (in my lifetime) we should have a law that the Sovereign *retires* at 85. We already have a gerontocracy in the House of Lords and to a degree, The House of Commons destroying our future
Bring on the 2024 General Elections
💖 Sorry for threadjacking Kaiser
Yeah, but a 63 y.o. woman is basically 100, while a 74 y.o. man is barely 50.
Given how long his parents lived its entirely possible that by the time Charles dies William will be in his 70s and then same again for George. So unless the UK gets onboard with the monarch retiring they are looking at a future of old kings
It’s a nice, modest start.
Translating to $$$ that’s ONE oil tank delivery! Surely it would be more generous to just increase their salaries a LOT more.
Based on the average Royal Household basic staff wage @ £20-25k, this works out at about 2.5%, so not even a real terms “bonus” given that inflation was riding at 11% at the end of October.
So unless the Royal Household staff got an amazing pay rise (which I seriously doubt) – Chuck has effectively given them a real terms pay cut….
But then again this is the family that used to gift soap and nectarines as presents for the staff below stairs.
Here is a link to Royal Household current vacancies, as you can see most are around the 25K pay mark. This is an increase from the last time I checked in 2021 when there was a thread on twitter dragging a 22k job advert
https://theroyalhousehold.tal.net/vx/candidate/jobboard/vacancy/4/adv
This particular role deserves a special mention as it’s zero hours contract based:
***Visitor Services Assistant/Warden (Windsor Castle)***
£10.90 per hour, plus lunch and training provided <<<=== WOW
Operations Assistant 24.5K
Digitisation Technician 24 – 24.5K
Warehouse & Fulfilment Supervisor 25K
Ticketing and Sales Assistant Manager – Admissions – 28K
Security Officer – 23.8K
Procurement Lead (Maternity Cover) – 35-45k
Head of Royal Correspondence – 55-60K
Charles reminds me of the Duke brothers in Trading Places, giving their servant $5 for Christmas. Maybe Charles’ servants can go to the movies . . . by themselves.
I think it’s good that he’s not letting a bunch of people go before the holidays. Like him or not, “streamlining” now would put working people out of jobs.