Can we stop acting like everyone has an equal capability to become well off?

I haven’t read all posts but this makes sense. Luck is part of it but this counts too.

Op it’s funny that I actually find your post insulting, laughing that you think I’m on mw because I must have done form of a difficulty as opposed to simple old can’t find any other job!!! I worked for years in offices but was a sahm and now all the jobs I go for have so many applicants all younger and all more technically minded/ marketing minded than me. I am fervently job hunting non stop as I am up seven days a week between the kids and the fact that two of my work days are nearly always weekends and I practically didn’t see the kids over Christmas.

Teen mum, single mum, neurodiverse, low self esteem, no family support and now mum of 3 here, but good worth ethic, work hard and earn well.

I think at some point you have to take ownership of your life and do something. Even if you didn't do well at school, do something vocation. I remember someone here saying even though her DD couldn't pass maths GCSE , she's doing well with "the lashes" and her "beauty technician" course.

There never were as many though. There can’t be. That’s not how hierarchies work.

For a lot of people it will be a choice. I have no desire to work full time in a stressful job and die early due to stress. I've chosen a MW job over my previous role that my degree was essential for. I'm much happier and don't actually earn that much less than friends in middle management roles that come with higher tax and tons of stress.

Yep ive done retail, factory work, warehouse work including 6-2/2-10pm shifts. Ive done bar work in evenings.

Life choices are a factor! I waited until i was 30 to have kids, until I'd moved up the ladder a bit and had more options for 9-5 work

But also at one stage DH and i did opposite hours. I started early, he took kids to childcare, i finished early and picked them up.

I can imagine its difficult if you are a single parent but it doesn't mean you have no options at all. Our working lives are 45 years long, kids are only young for about 10 of those. Even if you aren't able to progress in a career much before kids, you can try to once kids are older.

What it boils down to is that to progress in any kind of career, you will always have to be “better” than someone else.

More intelligent, quicker, better people skills etc. Even if we get rid of all biases and barriers that will still be the case. It’s impossible for everyone to be better than someone else.

Somehow it’s kinder to call people who can’t progress lazy and not working hard enough than admit not everyone is capable.

I work in STEM and I’m the first to recognise that I’m working at the limits of my IQ. As hard as I work there are others who just understand things 100x quicker than me.

It’s illogical to think this doesn’t apply in other jobs too. You still have to be smart to be a successful plumber or hairdresser and it’s insulting to those careers if you think otherwise.

There are a few things at play...

We look at challenges with modern day eyes whilst at the same time the more current drive that all careers start with a university degree limits others.

My mum is severely dyslexic but was only diagnosed at 14 and left school 6 months later. She got no support, it was just an explanation - you can barely read because you are dyslexic it was always going to be this way. Now she would have picked up much earlier, had greater support and would have been channeled into subjects that she excels at. As it was she spent 35 years as an untrained nurse. She is caring and with the right support could have managed to become a qualified nurse through the old route of on the job training but probably wouldn't have managed to qualify through the university route.

There is a mismatch in salary and worth. There are the 5 C's which are jobs mostly done by women which have been historically considered as less valued and this ae These are caring, clerical, cleaning, cashier and catering.

Often in communities this isn't a single person problem but a family and society problem. If you are living on minimum wage and have a family it is less likely that you can support other members of your family through education to get the bits of paper that permits them to do the jobs that can get them out of the minimum wage trap. So we have children stuck in low waged jobs because that was all there grandparents could manage and because of that their parents had to go straight into the workplace to bring in money and that means they don't have the funds to support their children through further education.

Money breeds money, channel 4 a few years ago did an experiment where they have two shoppers identical Christmas lists. One was from a low income household and the other a higher income household. Guess what the low income household had to pay a lot more for the exact same times. Primarily as they couldn't afford to walk into shops and buy them outright. When you are living like this you need to work more hours to cover your costs and you have less time to retrain and you have a large emotional burden of life which reduces the headspace to look for alternatives. Furthermore, without a built in safety net should the new career go wrong it is harder to make that jump.

I have been fortunate, I've benefitted from a steady increase on fortunes from generation to generation. My great grandparents on both sides were living on the breadline trying to stay out of the poor house poor. My grandparents on both sides were low waged but benefited from the welfare state which moved the families into "working class". My dad managed to get on an apprenticeship that was great for him, he has an innate gift for logic and as it happened the trade he was assigned at college fitted this and it got into allowed him to move from working in the trades to being a highly skilled trades person moving up the ranks within industry. My success right now is heavily linked to this. This allowed the family to jump from "working" to "middle class". My parents were able to support me and my sisters through our a levels and on to further education. This has given us all the ability to earn more and with that we have all built comfortable lives for ourselves. It took me 11 years, 2 degrees, and 2 1 year training posts to qualify. This nearly doubled my starting salary but it was a luxury I had because I had parental support.

Careers advice is also pretty poor, it often lacks imagination. The decision of what courses and careers is often linked to a subject you mostly liked at school there are so many interesting and well paid careers that many kids haven't heard of. My cousin did psychology and a few weeks into her degree realised it was a mistake, she got a work experience through a family member in construction and she switched to a degree linked to surveying and loved it.

This neatly brings me on to my final point and that is so often it is not what you know but who you know. I got a summer job because my sister worked there and I knew they needed a short term hirer to cover annual leave. This gave me 6 weeks experience in a lab environment at the very bottom of the ladder. This allowed me to talk confidently about working in a lab when it came to getting an industrial placement also the first comment from one of the interviewers was "I worked their too, small world". From getting that placement I was able to get funding for my PhD and once I graduated allowed me to get a role in a similar company as I had done part of the job already. I got all of these positions from my hard work and abilities but I still note and value that 6 weeks job at 18 as being very influential too. It gave me something in common with the interviews, it showed I had some real life experience, something different to other candidates to talk about in interviews and generally meant I started interviews on the front foot when I could then talk about my skills and abilities.

I agree with you as an adult. I spent 15 years working in the NHS and absolutely doing my best to sort my life out, despite the problems. Had I not had health issues I'd still be doing it. As a child and especially a teenager, I literally was lost. I had unsupportive, emotionally distant parents, I had no idea why I couldn't just do what was expected of me and that just made it worse. I honestly don't believe that I could have done better/differently. Once I was trapped in the relationship with a child it was virtually impossible to leave. I was 17, alone and vulnerable, he was nearly 10 years older.

I don't see myself as a victim though, and my children have grown up fine. They are both happy, working and living independently and we all have a great relationship. One is married, the other is also ND but lives a good life. I have a supportive partner and another child and fortunately money isn't everything to me. I'm actually quite content with my life (health issues aside), but was just explaining why I'm never going to earn a lot of money

I do think that a lot of those middle rung jobs have been disposed of and that’s a big issue - in our industry a lot of ‘middle men/middle earning ’ jobs have gone too as technology and the internet to a large extent have rendered them not needed.

There aren’t equal numbers of jobs at each level of the pyramid though, are there? Not everyone on a NMW job can be promoted. There aren’t enough next level jobs. And there are fewer at the one above that, and so on up.

If the best you can come up with is telling me to 'grow up' because of the way I expressed myself, avoiding the point made by sneering at the language, then it strongly suggests your own position is pretty 'weak and ineffectual'. However in the event you are genuinely unable to comprehend anything beyond the purely literal, I'll try again in straightforward literal language.
We need more low paid workers than high paid ones. We need more people doing the work than training or supervising them to do it. So there isn't enough senior posts to go around. Given that, how can everyone who wants to be better paid move into a more senior position?

Do they at least do well in their job once they are in?

I appreciate it's not the case for all, but many people on MW can and do make prudent decisions on saving, investing and pensions, despite their low income.

As a lone parent working part time, my income has mostly fallen below half of the average UK wage for most of my working life. But I've prioritised saving, investing, pensions and financial security. It is possible. Many people - whatever their income, do not - and when the opportunity arises, they don't want to take it, either through lack of understanding, apathy or a 'live for today' mentality.

Yes, the system is flawed and there are barriers - but keeping a mindset of taking action to improve your lot is a possibility. Perhaps being wealthy is not within reach, but building a stable and secure financial situation is usually in one's best interest.

Even if you are not academically inclined you need to put some hard work and grit in.

Whenever I read posts like these I always wonder about the limits of 'luck'. There is an element of determinism that I find really hard to accept.

So you think because you had untreated ADHD that it was almost inevitable that you performed badly in school, got into an abusive relationship, became a teenage mum and abused drugs and alcohol? Do you genuinely believe that there weren't crossroads and choices made by you that influenced the outcome?

I have a relative with a similar backstory. Their behaviour has really adversely impacted their own life and also their children's lives. The latter I find completely unforgivable. They blame untreated ADHD for all of it and see themselves as a victim of bad luck. We are all flawed humans. Even so called NT people can have very strong traits that can push us towards self sabotage and undesirable behaviour. It's very very difficult to manage and certainly isn't all about luck or even mostly about luck.

I always think of someone I know. Hardly went to school. Can read but can barely write. Spelling is terrible. No qualifications at all. No parental support. Lived in a remote countryside village. Worked from age 15 and started off in a manual labour job. Started his own business and is a multi millionaire now. It can absolutely be done but there is nothing wrong with people not wanting to do any more than a mw wage job and it’s not a personal defect to not want to.

Ah so in the government

It’s just the case of choosing better employers who didn’t see the minimum wage as a target to hit.

I know right, all those incredibly stupid people choosing shit employers and complaining, they don't deserve anything above minimum wage. If only they just applied for the thousands of jobs that are conveniently located, offering hours that suit and pay more than minimum wage.

That's really as polite as I can manage in response to such an ill informed hot take.

Just find something you're good at and where your skills lie and work towards doing the best you can in that.

Oh they really don't. Having had to deal with many "higher ups over the years in the Health, education, Social services and the military i can assure you there is a fair sprinkling of them that are thick. Sometimes it comes down to who you know, how much you brown nose and what you have on your boss. The lack of intellect is outstanding.

Hard work, luck, family support and ability to take a risk play a huge part. Being able to take the risk of a new job in a new place can play a huge part in life chances.

My family were very poor, but a focus on getting the best education possible, staying with extended familyand friends get jobs not available locally all paid off generation after generation.

People always come to these threads with anecdotal examples of exceptions like 'well I knew someone who xyz' or 'well my husband...'

It's a systemic issue. In fact it's not a flaw it's by design, you're right that society needs more worker bees than people who rise to the top. Anyone who doesn't think to is ignorant and imo prejudiced.

It's like the quote from Ratatouille! 'Not everyone can be a good cook, but a good cook can come from anywhere.' We need to have a few stories of people who have come from nothing and managed to make it big in order to perpetuate the myth that we live in a meritocracy. But just because a few people do doesn't mean anyone can.