Poor life planning..

I've lived on three different continents and worked on a fourth, rubbing shoulders with people ranging from African villagers who have to go to the communal well for water to billionaire financiers in Asian financial hubs.

The situation where the cost of someone's lifestyle increases at the same (or faster!) rate as their income so that by the time they're in the top 1% of earners they are still living paycheque to paycheque and somehow view themselves as average does seem to be quite unique to the UK, although I'd qualify that by saying I haven't stepped foot in the US for over forty years and it may well be prevalent there too.

By any objective global measure these people are extraordinarily well-paid, and because our tax systems focus on earnings (income tax and NI in the UK) and spending (VAT) they pay the most in tax. And they should: they have the broadest shoulders in the tax regime we have.

What they might not be is wealthy, not because they're taxed out of existence but because wealth isn't what you earn; it's what you keep. That's the choices OP started the thread about, and there do seem to be an awful lot of poor choices out there.

I wholeheartedly hate zero hours contract and they should be banned but are many jobs people can do that fit into the working week. As for unsocial hours where are the fathers in this? Why don’t they look after the kids so mum can work? One of the biggest problems this county had is that feckless fathers sire kids but don’t pay for them. This is where the government needs to invest to make sure they pay therefore freeing up taxpayers money to be used by other service. I don’t think that’s unreasonable

I’m not disagreeing but I do recognise that most unskilled jobs are not full-time. Most jobs in retail or hospitality are zero-hours, or if you’re lucky you might get a 6 or 8 hour contract. It’s impossible to sort childcare if you don’t know what hours you’re working on any given week. UC will only pay for the actual days you work. You can’t put a child in full time nursery on the off chance you’ll be working that week.

Care is really the only sector where you are guaranteed longer hours, but I know people who can’t work in care because they can’t get childcare at the weekend, and generally shifts end later than nurseries kick out.

It is a shitshow, but I recognise that it’s not as simplistic as mothers “not wanting to work”. There are huge barriers to employment in the UK, especially for unskilled workers and even more so for unskilled single mothers.

I think it’s clear someone who works full time is definitely NOT a scrounger and if you are on a low wage which needs to be topped up then so be it and top it up.I think most sensible people would probably agree with that. But if you are able bodied person and not a carer for a SEN child you need to be working full time and not being paid to stay at home for half the week. People are not being unreasonable in being pissed off by that.

Have I leapt to the defence of or even mentioned anyone who is "work half a week because it affects your benefits so you are paid by the taxpayer to stay home"?
I think the only group of low income people that I have mentioned are those who are working hard, long and antisocial hours on minimum wage with no hope of higher pay.

But what’s the alternative. When we’re shown these click-bait newspaper articles that show a mother on UC receiving £3k a month in benefits, everyone is up in arms. But they ignore the fact that £2K+ of that figure is probably for childcare.

If we want single mothers to work full-time, we need to accept that it will result in UC footing the childcare bill. But when they do, they’re still labelled as ‘scroungers’.

The alternative is the state paying them £1500 a month to stay at home and not work. Given that someone on a ft minimum wage will pay a little over £3k a year in tax/NI is obviously cheaper for the state for mother to stay at home while children are pre school-age.

I’m not saying that is the best solution, for a variety of reasons, I’m merely pointing out the maths.

I don’t know if you do or not. I haven’t asked you. I used the word “you” figuratively

Do I "work half a week because it affects your benefits so you are paid by the taxpayer to stay home"?

I think the point of living within your means and having a bit of leeway whatever you earn is a good one. For some people on lower wages it’s difficult to get by anyway and they will find it hard to have any buffers but for others I agree it’s a choice. It’s not because you can afford the better house/car/ handbag/ whatever that you actually need it. If it’s going to bring stress and panic when there’s a budget change or a moderate change in life circumstances because you streched yourself with a bigger mortgage then is it really worth it? Each to their own of course.

And you seem almost joyful about that. And is it not lazy to work half a week because it affects your benefits so you are paid by the taxpayer to stay home?

You are wilfully ignoring my point and that is fine.
I have lots of high earning friends who understand that hard work and dedication can actually get you nowhere if they aren't combined with other factors. I have also met some tossers who think that they are the only people who have ever worked hard so they deserve all of the rewards and shouldn't be funding "lazy" low paid people who could have just worked harder.
For what it is worth, I do not feel that either group are my enemy. I just think the latter group are stupid and short-sighted. They are often still outliving their means and could lose it all in a heartbeat no matter how hard they work.

But as I said maybe they have worked hard to get where they are just as a cleaner is a hospital works hard. There seems to be so much projection going on from people. High earners are not the enemy so many people here think they are

Yes - I definitely could have made different life choices as we all could have. My problem is the insistence that some people have that if everyone just worked as hard as they did everyone would be a high earner like they are.

But you know what maybe they could have, maybe you could have and maybe I could have made different life choices . You can that say that about probably most people, But that’s life some people do better than others for a myriad of different reasons and some people do worse for a myriad of different reasons but the high earners shouldn’t be made to guilty about doing well because they are the ones who pay a far higher proportion of taxes.

🙄There are plenty of people on here saying that they have worked hard, long hours etc etc etc to get what they have. There are also people on here implying that low earners have made poor life choices and could be earning more money if only they had done better / worked harder.

Nobody is pretending that

Can we all stop pretending that high earners are the only people who work hard and long hours / Christmas / bank holidays etc?
Many people slog their guts out working hard, long and antisocial hours on minimum wage.
We also can't pretend that these people should just have "chosen" a better paid career. There are lots of reasons that people cannot do this, not least because there are a finite number of high earning jobs. You can't run a hospital with 500 surgeons but no nurses and nobody to clean the toilets.
I can absolutely understand why high earners are upset at paying out so much in tax. The thing that bothers me is the "I've worked hard so I am entitled to everything I have" mentality, when so many people work just as hard and are struggling to make ends meet.
I think the other thread about "middle earners" was a bit tone deaf because to a lot of us the OP would be considered a high earner. That doesn't take away from the stupid means testing that looks at individual parent's income instead of household income though.Two parents earning £99K each could receive benefits that a household where one parent earns £101K and the other £12K would not be entitled to.

I'm quite obviously responding to the OP's argument, saying that technically their statement can apply to both sides of the argument. Duh

Not always insane hours, usually maybe but deffo not always .
My BIL works in finance , very flexible ,mainly working from home , never misses a child’s sports day, parents evening , or event . And never worked past 6pm or a weekend in his life . Granted it’s rare but not unheard of .

The CAB should be able to give you proper advice on this. You don't want to miss out

As someone who was born in soviet Russia, I guarantee you EVERYONE in this country had the basics! And it should absolutely be everyone right to want more and not be taxted on the last penny!!

So your job doesn't rely in any way on state infrastructure? Your life doesn't? If you genuinely believe that then you're living in cloud cuckoo land

We rely on the state, it relies on us. It's symbiotic

Another amusing parody. Please note people the obvious flags laid out (e.g. ‘x’h, as well as the clearly laughable numbers. But that’s the thing about parody eh, it works because there is a kernel of ‘truthiness’ therein. Bravo!