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

I’ve never seen anyone on MN claim they everybody has equal capacity to become well off. What I have seen is people pointing out that people from the same starting point and with the same capabilities make different choices which lead to different outcomes.

in the context of pensions, I have a very good one…. because I’ve worked full time for almost all my adult life, bar a very short amount of time when my babies were tiny and I worked 3 days a week. Some of the decisions I made:

-continuing in work even when our nursery bills were equivalent to my take home pay (this was before any subsidised childcare)
-stepping back up to full time as soon as my youngest was in the toddler room at nursery
-actively seeking promotions (even though it would have been less work to remain on a lower level for large parts of my working life.)

Some people make different decisions. I have at least two acquaintance of my age (approaching 60) who were either SAHM for a long time, or chose to remain working part time forever after having kids (even when those kids were grown up so I’m not talking about childcare issues here.)

This isn’t about judging people’s decisions - if a woman chooses to never work full time again after having children and her partner is ok with that, it’s their decision. But it seems pretty obvious that it’s going to have a massive impact financially particularly when it comes to pensions.

so I agree that obviously everybody doesn’t have equal capacity, but there is also a huge variation in the decisions people make along the way.

But he obviously had high intelligence and drive. ND is common in all populations, and is not necessarily a handicap, it just doesn't fit in with current educational norms. I know of two men who built up huge multimillion £ businesses despite being totally illiterate. However, that doesn't mean all people who can't read and write could do this, and for many it would be a massive obstacle to success.

We did engineering. Have DC done economics or science degrees.

English isn't all that bad. I know some lovely ladies who did English who are know doing well in the fast stream or have joined a publishing company.

I endorse families being reliant on their own incomes and not the taxpayer and not on me and my family's hard work.

I wouldn't mind workfare, I'd prefer it actually.

Absolutely agree that a degree isnt a guarantee of a super high flying well paid career. . Yes, it can open doors if you're lucky, but my BA History of Art degree seems to have not made me rich - I'm not on even NMW as a freelancer. 🫣

I read a news article a couple of days ago which said that the best degrees for the best paid jobs are not the arts, but finance, IT and accountancy ones. They were talking about ones in America but I think that I'd say it reflects the general level of best degrees for well paid jobs.

I mean. You did English..... What do you expect? It's not stem, economics or law is it.

Many people at the bottom of the pile actually hold the whole thing up. Many years ago I worked in a police control room. One day as I worked away the chief inspector dropped by for a chat, to see what was happening. He said to me, ' you know, you are the most important person in the place. If I wasn't here police work would continue, but if you aren't sitting there, answering phones, putting jobs on the computer and telling police officers what to do, it would be chaos'. The people who do the grunt work are often the ones doing the most important stuff. It's about getting work done, the people at the top might write reports or strategies but they don't do the work.

That’s a very ignorant statement. In my last organisation (admittedly not on NMW, but a very piddly amount of pence per hour more than NNW) my output kept the cogs turning in terms of our services and activities for the general public, and generated income for the organisation. Without my work, and the work of others at the same level, the organisation simply wouldn’t have run/been fit for purpose.

The ‘Head of’ overseeing my team, on considerably higher than NMW? Floated from meeting to meeting, writing on flip-chart paper, sticking post-its on the walls, talking a whole lot about nothing to justify their position while having no proper overview of the organisation and making no real contribution to its successful running. All in between their reflective pieces posted on LinkedIn…(Now if we’re talking LinkedIn output/blowing one’s own trumpet, then I hold my hands up - a vast amount of people at the top DEFINITELY trump me in that regard!).

I think you will find the above example playing out across organisations of all shapes and sizes. I was “more productive” and “worth more” in every sense of the word than the “Head of”.

I am not for a second saying that this is the case of ALL senior level staff. I get that many at the top have worked bloody hard and made sacrifices along the way to achieve what they have. And they continue to work hard and use their expertise for the benefit of their workplaces. And of course, there are people at the bottom who have always had a poor attitude to work/do not care one jot about their output…

….But “they generate less output…” is very ignorant.

What were their bad choices? I also drilled into my kids that they should work hard at school or their options would be limited. Didn't want them to grow up stuck on a low wage job, having to struggle.

It's a mix, isn't it? I've done very well for myself and partly due to extremely hard work but partly also luck (loving parents, encouragement from the right people).

I do know people from school who were prettier, smarter and richer than me and have really not done well at all. They made a series of bad choices in their early 20s that are hard to come back from.

I am eternally grateful to my (poor, immigrant) parents who drilled it into me that school is the only way out. If you don't do well at school, adult life is 100 times harder. And it's so, so true. I'm in my late 30s, doing very well, because I did so well at school.

Blame rising rents and bills for people working full time needing to get benefit top ups, not the people doing important but low paid work.

It’s not writing people off. Its acknowledging that the battle is not the same for everyone so judging people who have not moved beyond certain points in life indicates a woeful lack of understanding this.

If there's one belief that's nails down a blackboard to me, it's 'well, if I can do it, anybody can do it'. Talk about false humility.

🥱

Other country’s bring this in big time at 13/14 - I remember even Kenneth baker thought it made sense

I used to teach 16-18 year olds at an FE college many years ago. I had a student who had done very well on the course and showed a lot of promise. I asked him if he was planning to go on to university and he laughed in my face. I told him that he really should be seriously considering it and if he wanted to apply I’d help him with his application, which I did and to his shock he was accepted.

Years later he got in touch with me on Facebook. He was married with children and had a great job in IT. He wanted to thank me for pushing him towards uni. He told me that nobody in his life had ever mentioned uni as a possibility. Not his parents nor relatives, or even any of his schoolteachers. He had believed that uni wasn’t for people like him, because he didn’t know anyone else who had gone.

This was a young lad from an inner-city sink comprehensive school. Nobody had any expectations of him. He was very obviously a very smart young man, yet nobody had seen his potential. Nobody had encouraged or supported him. That is heartbreaking, and there are countless young men and women in the same boat.

For some people, just having a person give a shit is a ‘privilege’ that others sadly don’t have.

Tudors was only in year 3 iirc

More help in school and work experience in school instead of learning about the Tudors and other pointless lessons Children could be given work experience once they are at secondary school If they leave school knowing what they can or can't do i think that would be betterp

What a strange post!

Productivity doesn't just relate to making unessential, frivolous stuff but essential goods and services too. Anything that you rely on other people to do or make for you. So carers for our most vulnerable, hospital workers, people producing plumbing components and people repairing potholes. If someone paints three park benches instead of two in a day then this has an obvious benefit to society. If a consultant can see 20 patients instead of 15 then this could have a huge impact on those individuals and potentially save lives. If we can buy essential goods when we need them then this will improve all our quality of lives and prevent some really dire situations. Who wants to run out of toilet roll or milk?

Have you ever considered how the worked would function in a completely unproductive world or where money didn't exist? Do you really think it would be better?

Everyone who is not physically or mentally disabled or looking after disabled relatives can and should go out into the world and make their own success and be self sufficient and not rely on the taxpayer forever. Needing it in an emergency is fine. Needing it till you're back on your feet is fine. But I don't think anyone should rely on the state for their entire working life.

Generally because a lot of caring jobs are paid for from the public purse so need tax and taxes come from the private sector - people making crap no-one needs (among other things) and selling it at a profit and paying tax on those profits and the workers who make them paying income tax. The public sector can recycle money but it doesn't directly generate it. The problem with economic models that drive towards lower consumption (eliminate the stuff people don't need like nail varnish and decorative throws) is that they shrink the tax base which means less money for the things that people want like healthcare, eldercare and education. There is an argument that if people worked less they could take on these caring roles themselves but it's hard to shrink an economy in an orderly way which is why despite the arguments for more sustainable consumption, no government is going to attempt a drive towards it.

The most damaging lie ever told to a generation of children.