Do you begrudge high earners?

It's not about intellectual capability. Some of the roles requiring the highest levels of intellectual capability are not the highest earning, medical, complex research, higher echelons of academia for example. It's usually more about connections, acquired knowledge, interpersonal skills and self promotion. All greatly assisted by rigorous gatekeeping of the roles to a specific demographic, thus keeping the pool deliberately small to maintain that rarity value.

"Would you be actually willing to put in the time and effort yourself?"

You could say that about low paying jobs that I expect you think are easy.

Your friends’ behaviour is really quite sickening and I don’t know how they can think it’s ok. Do they not want an NHS that they and their loved ones can rely on in times of illness? Schools for their children? A police force that does an effective job or a fire service available is their house is burning down? I couldn’t be friends with them.

Agreed. Fingers point at the wrong people imo. Take half the £300k off the upper management, it's not going to trickle down to the cleaners. Only moves upwards.

Part of the same issue when FTSE CEOs salaries have exploded since 2008, the rest of us, not so much.

Inequality is really important, IMO.

I think it's helpful to separate the role/ post from the post holder.

Big public sector organisations and charities (whose funding is provided by others as opposed to profits) have processes to evaluate and grade roles. They produce pay bands and pay points based on this. They have a rationale for why each job is paid at the level it is and they apply the same criteria across all roles

Private sector organisations base pay on maximising profits. If they can fill roles cheaply, they will. If paying a high salary increases profits, they will.

The point that people raise about equality of opportunity and who is most likely to get the best paid roles, and whether post holders do their job well is a different matter.

My DH is a high earner via PAYE and pays huge amounts in tax and I earn northwards of £70K via PAYE so we both pay our share. Happy to do so.

What gripes me is self employed friends laugh at us for being mugs working PAYE whilst they avoid paying as little tax as possible- take benefits because their accountants keep their taxable income low and they have v expensive cars, multiple holidays and spend their time on golf courses. Also first ones to go to the GP for every single niggle and get annoyed when no appointments.

Individually I don't but in some cases I begrudge a system that rewards some careers disproportionately over others.

Did anyone claim they didn't? What we have actually seen on this thread about high earners is
unsubstantiated claims of tax dodging
anecdotes about high earners looking down on low earners
accusations of women lying about their earnings because they are on MN during the day
comparisons to Bono and Wayne Rooney!

Top 5% is "only" about £90k. We clearly have a low salary problem, not a high earner problem.

And still had plenty of money left after paying tax. Win-win.

I certainly do not begrudge anyone who is a high earner. Good luck to them. As long as it is honest work, it can only be a good thing. Whether or not I understand what they do in their job depends on what it is, I understand some and not others. That doesn't matter. We'd all like to have a high salaried position, surely? When I was working, I did not earn a high salary but didn't do badly, sort of middling, and was content with that because the work suited me. My husband was much the same. I honestly have never understood those who resent or begrudge others who earn, have or can do, more than they. That is life.

The likes of Bono are in their own stratosphere of earnings, like the top 0.0001%. Top 10% starts at people earning £60,000 a year. Not helpful to lump them into the same category.

OP said 300k+

You can over tax high earners, and that is an issue. The UK has one of the highest rates of wealth-flight in the world, which doesn’t just deprive the coffers of tax money, but of investment and economic growth. Capital is mobile, and there are plenty of countries actively aiming to attract the wealthy. The ‘well those selfish arseholes can fuck off then! Fuck them!’ response isn’t actually hurting those it’s aimed at - they’re better than fine and not looking back - it’s hurting those left picking up the tab.

It depends how that money is earned...

I have no respect for people who: make a fortune using asset stripping/hedge funds, big landlords, utility bosses (you only have to look at Thames Water), many politicians who have no interest in public service but instead use their position to make themselves wealthier, corporate bosses who exploit their workforce and try to find ways to pay little tax, people who get well paid jobs purely because of family connections/money.

Basically of the entitled parasites that contribute little to society as a whole but seem to believe they are the only ones who 'work hard' and this is why they are wealthy.

Beyond that anyone who makes an honest living and manage to earn a lot that way and does not look down on others should be applauded.

I think most people have a sense of fairness and are sick of nepotism, workforce exploitation and suggestion that people on low/average wages are just not working hard enough...

Working hard is irrelevant.

High earners have - in the main - a set of skills or abilities which have rarity value in our society.

They get paid so highly to bring "that rare skill" to this company. That's it.

If there was a bigger pool of people intellectually capable of doing the high value work - in the main - then they would not be paid as highly.

I was earning a lot during the last Labour government. I saw the Sure Start centres in my neighbourhood doing good work, NHS waiting times were low. Although it wasn’t perfect by any means, I felt as though it was worth earning more even if I took home just a little more, because it felt good to contribute. This is what many high earners have lost.

The urge to contribute and give back to society is still very much there for some people - take the example of the organisation Philanthropic Millionaires. But collectively we have lost confidence in ability of government to spend our taxes well.

I think people do get like that because of general attitudes and misunderstandings. This thread is a good example. No-one here has attacked care workers or teachers. It’s everyone else doing that to justify attacking higher earners. People have highlighted the huge amounts of tax a high earner on PAYE contribute because again - people can’t help themselves. All high earners are tax avoiders and don’t contribute.

The unpleasantness comes from people projecting what they think higher earners are saying and doing. For the majority, they are wrong and out right misunderstanding.

Let's face it though, that lack of respect is not unique to higher earners. Plenty of pricks in all tax brackets.

We kind of need some high earners . They pay tax and to a degree stimulate the economy

that said define high earner , in this day and age my bar is pretty bloody high for someone to be classified as a high earner

No. I accept that we operate in a market economy, therefore people earn what the market determines their skills & experience are worth. Also, workers are entitled to join trade unions in order to negotiate salaries terms & conditions collectively. The salaries paid to train drivers vs bus drivers demonstrate how this can be done successfully.

No, but I do get fed up with people treating those that earn less than they do, with no respect. If we didn’t have cleaners at work, who would step up to do the communal loos?

I totally agree with you. I wasn’t saying they shouldn’t have money left over - of course they should. It’s just that some people act like being a high earner is so burdensome because they pay SO MUCH TAX when the fact is they still have a lot more - even after the huge tax bill - than lower earners. They pay more because they have more, as it should be.

Which is how it should be.