to be fed up of hearing 'I've worked hard for my money'

@Starconundrum not jealously, we don't care that you have big houses in suburbia with manicured lawns and £200 a week grocery bills. Knock yourselves out. But it smarts a bit that you're now being asked to pull your weight a bit more and you're all yelling like you've been asked to donate all your teeth.
Others have died due to austerity.

Based.

There's hard work and there's also the main factor skill. Actually knowledge and brain power needed.

@newbluesofa Are you me, OP?

He pays significantly more tax percentage wise than the low income earners. Every time it's "let's just take more and more".

One of the reasons DH is thinking of a transfer to an office his firm has in the gulf states.

Starconundrum "

"not jealously, we don't care that you have big houses in suburbia with manicured lawns and £200 a week grocery bills. Knock yourselves out.
But it smarts a bit that you're now being asked to pull your weight a bit more and you're all yelling like you've been asked to donate all your teeth.
Others have died due to austerity."

Thank you! My thoughts exactly. I couldn't articulate it.

I'm sorry your childhood was so difficult, it sounds like you've really been there for your brothers.

Im not quite sure what answer you are expecting from me... Not everyone has exactly the same opportunities but we do live in society where opportunities are available and that you can earn more based on unique skills where the value of those is determined by employers/ the market/ clients.

Lord Sugar? Council estate to billionaire.

Invests and helps budding entrepreneurs every year. Set up, ran successful businesses and employed people.

The whole "hard working" trope taking over from simply working. Can do one!

Yeah tbh I’m really bored of people who don’t pay HRT having an issue on behalf of those of us who do.

It gives “I’d like more of my husband’s money.”

Your husband, like the rest of us, can enjoy the fruits of his labour. After he’s paid tax on it, like everyone else.

It's just not true that only people in high-paid jobs sacrifice their time, health (try prioritising your health while working long hours for low pay in a physically demanding job), and other opportunities, while people in low-paid jobs coast along. As I just posted on another thread, across the jobs I've had I have experienced by far the most stress and worked the longest hours in the ones that paid less. A clear correlation between higher pay and higher stress/harder work just doesn't exist, and it never has.

Campaign for higher corporation tax then. Or a wealth tax. Look up.

It's very obvious to me that the OP is talking about all the high earners who are being asked to contribute a little more to the pot and are screaming their heads off about it like they're about starve.

Benefits were frozen and in some cases reduced over the last 15 years, rarely increased. The poor in society have already starved. Some actually did and are dead.

Newly disabled people are set to have their benefits slashed by £50 a week from this April. Thats £800 a month for the MOST disabled being reduced to £600. That's just over a quarter of the minimum wage for the most disabled in our society. They cannot work harder, they cannot improve their lot. That is what they get. And everyone wants to screw about with their notability allowance now too.

Where were the 20 threads a day in outrage over that?

We were told we were in this together but there was no acknowledgement for the poor, only platitudes and advice to eat lentils and not avocados. Remember 30p a day lee? Who is now a reform MP?

Its not jealously, we don't care that you have big houses in suburbia with manicured lawns and £200 a week grocery bills. Knock yourselves out.
But it smarts a bit that you're now being asked to pull your weight a bit more and you're all yelling like you've been asked to donate all your teeth.
Others have died due to austerity.

You still actively will have much much more than the vast majority of us.

My husband is my partner for life. We aren't flatmates living in a shared house. We are a married couple with children. Yes of course I want my husband to be able to enjoy the fruits of his labour.

Sacrificed my sanity with work pressure. Sacrificed my health. Worst of all I sacrificed my fertility due to career aspirations. More fool me.

I don't want to make a sob story but he has come from nothing at all to the successful man he is today. We just both valued education and hard work.

@CheeseIsMyIdol This is such an amazing trajectory for your Mum, but to you and @Forgetmenot9 I'd just say, I grew up in a very violent home, both parents addicts, my older brother was beaten to within an inch of his life several times, my younger brother moved in with me when he was 10 to escape it. We've all worked from a young age and my brothers at least continue to work all hours, hard, hard work. Do they deserve to eventually earn very good money and be world travellers? Because the way things are, there is very little chance of that despite, I'd say, as much hard work as anyone could feasible fit into their 28 or 42 years of life. My only point is that hard work just isn't enough. I wish it was. My brothers would be more financially secure and comfortable if it was. But it isn't.

It's always easy to say "you should pay more tax but not me". Especially when the person with the increased tax bill already pays the more % wise.

Sounds more like ambition and hard work than luck to me. Typically the people who call this "luck" are the ones who expect to do nothing but be given everything. Very few people in this world get to be lazy AND financially comfortable, the rest of us DO work hard.

That is so true! They've spaffed all their money on holidays, cars, clothes, big houses etc because it's their money and they've "worked hard for it"

@newbluesofa YABU. And you know you are. Both things can be true. My mum is a nurse so I understand both sides of the coin. Just because mum worked hard doesn’t mean I didn’t work hard. I was also a sales assistant and whilst physically that was more demanding - my job now is more emotionally stressful. You don’t like people whining… people are entitled to their feelings and opinions. This is not (or at least shouldn’t be) a race to the bottom. Both positions are valid. Because people have different capacities to handle pressure and at different times in their lives. I think we should focus on attempting to create solutions that benefit the whole of society not constantly bickering between ourselves.

I'll offer up a comparison here of 2 people.

Person One is born into a dysfunctional family who goes into care at age 15 after already mixing with the "wrong crowd". They have an ND which wasn't diagnosed for whatever reason. They are also simply not very intelligent, and rather unattractive. Parents didn't help with their homework or encourage them to read, and may have been some of those people who "lived off taxpayer's money all their lives" as many on MN are sure make up the majority of poorer people. The school is overwhelmed, underfunded and has discipline problems due to being on a sink estate. The parents also either drink or take drugs, and look on the child purely as a source of income from benefits, and treat them as an annoyance which is why they have ended up in care. They will have absolutely no chance of going to Uni, in fact it's dismissed or denigrated by their family & associates as "not for the likes of us".

Person Two is born into a "middle class" family. They go to a decent school, and may get a tutor so they can get into a Grammar school. They probably would have anyway, as they won on the genetic lottery and are intelligent naturally as well as good looking. Parents have encouraged them to read and have an inquisitive nature, and take them on holidays which are educational as well as fun. They are taught that hard work is rewarded by treats or money, their parents help with homework, they are encouraged to study things they are interested in and/or have a natural aptitude for. They are encouraged and rewarded for exams at school and to go to Uni, and their parents financially help them while they are there.

When Person Two lands a great job in finance working for their dad's best mate, whereas Person One ends up as a semi-skilled manual worker, would that REALLY be just down to Person Two working harder?

Tbh lots of people work hard but it doesn’t matter what they earn if they aren’t careful with their earnings.

Over the years I have known people who have out earned everyone in their group who end up with less than the minimum wage worker who has been careful with their money.

I’m a middling earner and I feel I work hard but I think high earners often work “harder” in terms of stress and responsibility. It’s often also about appetite for risk - true wealthy people (unless they’ve inherited / been given a family business) are normally the entrepreneurs who have taken a big risk at some point.

I don’t begrudge anyone their wage that’s doing all that - I acknowledge I’m not capable of it and that’s fine.