Do you begrudge high earners?

My xh was a high earner. I did begrudge it quite a lot really - he'd come home expecting a hero's welcome for his 10 hours in the City trenches while I'd done the same in the classroom plus I had to sort out childcare, dinner, the house etc. and then finish paperwork. He thought he was special because he earned so much, but he wasn't curing cancer all day or nursing or looking after the elderly... I find it difficult to reconcile high salaries with so little 'greater good' worth.

There was a post on here from a high earner a while ago who claimed to nap, head to the gym and do her own thing a good part of the day- that was sickening.

On the other hand, you read women say their DH is a high earner but is never home - that sounds miserable all round.

No one needs to earn 300k+ and it's horrible knowing that salaries like that are coming from us being overcharged for services or goods, eg insurance. The money comes from somewhere!

I'm an NHS clinical manager and am happy with my salary despite massive stress levels and very long working hours. Eg I was 'off' yesterday and worked from 9am to 8pm to get admin done as was working 'on the floor' all week due to low staffing. My salary is enough to get by.

I can't imagine working any harder than I already do to be honest so I'm not sure how pay reflects activity..... It really doesn't. Our domestic works her butt off to ensure that our clinical rooms are sparkling - for minimum wage.

This is very accurate to the thread.

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Yep I had a manager like that . A brilliant delegator who could not actually do her job . The wheels do eventually fall off the bus though .

Former high earner here.

Tax avoidance is perfectly legal and normal! The government uses schemes to encourage particular behaviours, such as investment into pensions and share schemes.

The pressures on high vs low earners are different but can be equivalent. We all need to have empathy for one another.

It is distasteful when high earners complain about paying their fair share of taxes. Our taxes have not been used to keep public services in good order by the current government, which has had a knock on effect on our industries and society, and their poor policies have deterred investment in the UK. So hold your MP to account. Don’t punch down on carers, cleaners, and all the other key workers on who we all rely.

You literally are. 😂

I think there's different types of hard work. I work in care, on my feet a lot, poorly paid, some gross stuff - but I don't find it particularly hard. Tiring, but not especially hard.
DH has years of education, sits at a desk 10 hours a day, dealing with numbers I can't even fathom, with responsibilities for sums, hiring and firing, that would send me into a nervous breakdown,
Him being well paid, isn't why I am poorly paid. So why would I begrudge it?

And? They should have money left over. We already have a tax situation where higher earners are steered away from work. People on PAYE are so heavily penalised it’s often better to just earn less at some points. If you completely take away any benefit from doing well - who is funding society?

We need to move away from the opinion that people should be thankful to keep a percentage of their earnings if they do well. It’s damaging the UK.

Aye ok if you say so.

No disrespect to your husband, but frankly, that's a shocking way to run a company. You'd have thought they'd have a succession plan in place.

We aren’t. This is a thread about high earners. High earners who pay a huge amount of tax and fund the UK. You’re talking about wealthy celebs and tax avoidance.

It depends what the job is, and whether the salary is out of proportion to others in their organisation and/or wider society.

Some people are worth their pay check, others really aren't. Some head honchos and financial types have done huge damage to our economy and society because of bad decisions and/or greed.

There was a thread recently about investment bankers regularly working 80-120 hours per week. There is no amount of money that I think would make that desirable!

I don't begrudge high earners per se but I do think a lot (not all) have got there via advantages or partly luck as well as working hard, but almost everyone would say it was purely down to their own hard work/determination etc.

The top 1% of taxpayers contributed 29% of income tax revenue last year.

Bono and high earning salaried employees are simply not comparable.

True. They still have a lot more spare money (the post-tax portion of their income) than low earners though. I don’t resent high earners at all but let’s not pretend that they don’t still have lots of money left over even after they’ve paid a lot of tax.

Same for the concept of 'stressful'

We all have vastly different tolerance levels of what we can and are prepared to handle.

Not all high earners are working that much harder than other people.

My husband is a high earner and I'm not saying his job is easy peasy, but I wouldn't say it's even in the top 10 of hardest jobs people I know have. It's a clearly defined 9-5 with no work outside those hours, work from home as much as he likes, and he's a consultant so he can take whatever time off gets likes and he doesn't have to do all the targets, appraisals, chasing promotions etc.

I certainly worked a hell of a lot harder when I was a teacher and even when I switched to an office role, I wouldn't say it was less stressful than his job.

yeah well try telling that to Bono or Google

The phrase 'working hard' needs to be kept completely separate from discussions on salary and wealth.

It can mean so many different things to different people - emotional labour, physical labour, intellectual work, responsibility, shouldering of consequence, hours in the job...

There is no like for like when we talk about 'working hard'...

How much would it cost the company if you left tomorrow without notice?

DH isn’t a £300k high earner, but he has a decent salary. If he walked out tomorrow, the company would lose millions.

I work part time and earn a few quid more than minimum. If I left tomorrow, my boss would be mildly inconvenienced until she found a replacement.

Of course they are!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-37645051.amp

No point wasting time being envious when I could be adding to my own earnings.

Also, having worked in an investment bank, you couldn't pay me enough to go back.

I'll take the lower salary to work with people I like. It's worth every penny. 🙂