To think the problem with wealth inequality is that rich people don't know how rich they are?

Erm I hope you realise you don't get an accurate picture of someone's real life and financial situation through social media?? It's a mirage.

With social media everyone can compare themselves to everyone.

The sweeping generalisations here. Holy crap.

I'm English.

I disagree with the notion of 'wealth inequality' because it encourages mediocrity and decline. Envy damages everything it touches regardless of the form it comes in and I don't entertain it.

No - the top 50 families own more than the combined assets of the BOTTOM 50% of the UK population, not more than 50% of the total population. Important distinction. Also if you look at whose those families are, a lot of that wealth is not primarily derived from economic activity within the UK, so it's arguable who should be benefiting from that. That is actually part of the problem, in that extreme wealth is now extremely "global" so hard to pin down in terms of effective taxation strategies.

But yes, I agree with you that heaping Doug and Sarah, and even Jane and John with a combined salaried income of £1million in with Jeff Bezos and the Mittals is unhelpful.

Louder for those at the back!

Also '6 figure earners only compare themselves to other 6 figure earners' - couldn't the same be said for lower earners. What with social circles and all that.

If we're talking about billionaires, maybe. I think it's obscene that Jeff Bezos has more than 220 billion and yet tax payers are having to pay benefits to Amazon workers who can't afford to live on the shitty wages he gives them.

But people who earn more than 100k? That includes jobs like doctors. I think you're being ridiculous to blame them for creches being so expensive.

100%.
The really rich- the people with £100 million plus investments, live in staff and homes across the world- know perfectly well they’re rich.
They just don’t want you to notice them. They want you hating Susan instead.

"Rich" for me is Kardashian rich, private jets, so much money you cannot even work out how to spend it.

Not just being able to buy whatever I want in Sainsbury's 😅

It’s corruptive, no one ever looks below, we all look above to where we aspire to be.

But I bet you are not among the superrich. 'Off the back of other people' relates to the fifty families who own 50% of Uk's wealth. or equivalent families the world over. I never want to give the impression I judge people on £100k for being exploitative! I have a few friends and a few clients who are 10 times wealthier than me, all from their own efforts. One, like you, from extreme poverty. I hugely admire and like these people. And they spend their money, and share it.

The people I despise are the ones who accumulate wealth aggressively when they couldn't possibly spend a fraction of it. There is no trickle down. The money is blocked, locked away in bank accounts, benefitting no one.

Ehrm. I have to disagree with your statements. Some people have earned their wealth through hard work. Many have inherited from generations that have not earned anything by hard work at all. They were born into wealth that generated new wealth by investors.

I take it you're American telling us we should be inspired by the wealthy and their nepotism rather than questioning how reasonable it is that some have accumulated wealth they (or even their family in generations forward) will never be able to spend while others through accidents/disabilities struggle to survive. That's just indecent.

@Neeroyrather than looking at the wage, what lifestyle do you picture a rich person to live? Not middle class, rich.

Now think if someone on £125-150k is likely to be able to afford that lifestyle on that wage.

I earn well, not 100k but a decent amount of money. So if I said what I earn it sounds great. But my OH has been in and out of work for the last three years, mainly out of work, so them it's not so great. I'm labouring the point but what I'm trying to say is it's so individual.

a) they pay 50% of tax so are a hugely important group to the UK’s economy.

b) wealth and income are very different

And as for the “how did they get this way, off the back of other people” - again, I come from a single parent family and poverty in Stoke.

I’m solo self-employed. I definitely did not get “rich” off anyone else. I paid my own way through uni working 16-35 hours a week on top of a full time law degree.

Most of my colleagues earn £100k + but many of them are also paying up to £3k per month in childcare. They don’t have huge amounts of disposable income and the single parents in particular are having to watch every penny. What makes it worse is people like you OP belive that they are rich and are living a luxurious lifestyle. They really aren’t. One of my closest friends earns half that but has far more holidays than my colleagues because (1) her mam looked after her kids and (2) she lives in a part of the country where it’s still possible to buy a three bed terrace at a reasonable price.

I think the discrepancy in cost of living across the country is not talked about often enough in context of incomes.

£100k is £5.7k after tax.

A small house in my area will cost £700k+. Thats £3.5k a month in mortgage repayments. Unremarkable property.

A nursery place will be ~ £2,300.

That’s the entirety of the take home pay on £100k to live in a small terraced house and have one child in nursery so you can go to work.

Thats why these people don’t feel ‘rich’ - their life looks no different to yours really as the local cost of living is so much higher, and it isn’t affording them a better standard of living.

I guess what I’m saying is that “six figures” isn’t a great benchmark for “rich”. And I grew up in poverty in Stoke so I get what you’re saying - clearly I’m much better off than people on or below the average salary but I really dont think I have an amazing lifestyle for the hours and stress I have TBH.

A quick google says that about 1.35 million people in the UK earned more than £100,000 in the 2022/23 tax year.

The UK population is about 69 million.

So these earners are in a minority. And their votes are going to be in a minority. I would question whether the way they feel is "the problem." However they feel, they can be massively outvoted by the people who earn less than them. So why do we have a system which allows (even promotes) massive wealth inequality?

(Genuine question btw).

Your last point is very true. Seen globally, everyone in the UK is very well off. There are large parts of the world where people scrape by on 1 dollar a day.

Which goes to show that comparisons aren't always useful or helpful. Telling someone struggling to put food on the table in the UK that they're actually better off than billions of people worldwide doesn't change the fact that they're struggling.

Likewise, telling someone earning 100k that they're rich doesn't change the fact that they're tied into a 30 year mortgage, can't afford the lifestyle their parents had, are having to check prices in supermarkets etc.

The main issue that's squeezing everyone's budget is housing. Prices should never have been allowed to skyrocket like they did. At the very least they should be maintained at a stable level for the next couple of decades by building loads more to increase supply.

I don’t think people earning six figures are as rich as you think…

I earn six figures (£120k). I’ll be able to buy a very small one bedroom flat in East London so I can be reasonably close to work (I do a four hour return commute at the moment and it’s killing me). I have a big mortgage so no early retirement for me.

I have one 8 year old car, that has very damaged bodywork but I can’t afford to fix as it happened during COVID when I was unemployed and couldn’t afford the excess to claim on insurance.

I go on one very cheap few days away in Europe sharing an AirBnB with friends a year and a couple of overnight stays in AirBnBs in the UK. No big abroad holidays.

£120k is my income but I don’t have a pension or private healthcare because I’m contracting.

I don’t buy any designer anything. I buy at least 50% of my clothes second hand on eBay.

I don’t have a cleaner or anything like that. I have no savings. Like £0.

Is this “rich”? I would have felt really well off on the same salary 10-15 years ago but not anymore at all. And yes, partly because of where I’m choosing to buy but honestly I can’t cope with four hour commutes every day anymore on top of a 10 hour work day.

I don’t think this is true for a lot of ‘rich’ people. In london, many bankers and lawyers will be on £1m+ - they’re not business owners so not exploiting zero hour workers.

And they do pay a huge amount of tax. I agree that yes, some wealthy people will have run poor business practices, but it’s student politics to say all rich people got there off the back of exploited workers.

They got that way through hard work. Even those who have inherited money, their parents will have worked their backsides off.

Success is earned. Many risks have been taken. Do you ever roll your eyes when a business owner complains about taxes? You shouldn't, because taxes have increased and many business owners have had to abandon their dreams, or worse, they've ended their lives, bringing major upset and pain to their families.

If you have a job, it's because someone worked their backside off and ploughed through several sleepless nights wondering how the hell they're going to pay their employees.

Don't belittle success, be inspired by it or fail. That's it.

Absolutely agree with this. The addiction of making more and more money to not even live a lavish lifestyle yet alone help those around you or in need is in my opinion grotesquely ugly.

If I were in a position of super wealth I would absolutely want to better the world around me.

Yes. This is the problem. And they are NOT supporting us all via their taxation. No one kid yourself on this. We are subsidising their wealth by accepting low pay, zero hours, idolising the vapid pursuits of the superrich and devaluing the work of those who most benefit society.