If we are all in this together, what cuts have the rich suffered?

[Grennie]

I know mumsnetters seem to be better off than average. So just want to point out that in 2012 the mean national average wage is £29,900. The median was £20,000. And only 10% of people earned £50,500 or above.

So what cuts have this 10% of people suffered?

ps. I'd rethink journalism as being a well paid job, if I were you. There might be a tiny number of people in the media who earn terrifically well, but I have seen an awful lot of people put countless hours and countless effort into developing their skills - and meeting deadlines - and they think themselves lucky if they get paid at all. Never heard any of them describe their working hours as stressful though. Challenging, thrilling, but not the kind of stress people complain about.

There are different kinds of stress. I think you are idealising the roles I mention.

I think there is good research that the more autonomy you have, the less work stress you feel. So it is entirely likelyt hat badly paid shit jobs are very stressful. heads is right that more senior jobs have a more constructive kind of stress.

But nobody is paying for stress. They are paying for skills and experience, and within that, by relative rarity value.

I have friends who work for the FT, Times, guardian, mail etc. for a decade or two.

are your contacts quite young - they don't sound like my tired old hack friends who stare up from the bottom of a wine glass to complain?

more senior jobs have a more constructive kind of stress.

ha ha ha ha

so do you actually work in senior roles?

I'm certainly not idealising journalism! But there really are different kinds of stress, and different people will react to them and deal with them in different ways. If you're not a deadline junkie, then journalism is not the job for you. Similarly, if you hate delivering presentations, then get over it or do a job that doesn't involve it.

But low paid jobs are at the bottom of the pile, and there is no opting out of those. Personally I find having no autonomy, and being unable to resolve issue for people I am supposed to help, very stressful and frustrating. So I have hated most of the low paid work I've done. I enjoy being able to make decisions, and taking responsibility for my good decisions. Being accountable for my bad decisions just comes with that.

The thing is, just as a headteacher MUST deliver, or else - so must the call centre worker. Ok, the stakes for other people aren't as high, but they are for the individual - they are still going to get sacked if they don't deliver. And it is very, very easy to get sacked from low paid service sector jobs. That kind of insecurity adds to people's burden of stress too. As does managing to make ends meet on very low wages.

I'm glad your friends are successful, but as I'm sure you know, they don't represent the vast majority of people in journalism.

I do, yes. I guess you do too?

I agree that some senior people cope with the stress by being total shits and others find it harder. The research didn't say there was no stress. It said that kind of stress associated with senior roles, such as resolving conflicts, delivering projects, etc, was better for health than the kind associated with having no effective way to respond to or resolve the stressful issues presented.

FWIW, there has been lots of research done on different occupational stressors. I'm not going to post loads of links, because I'm guessing people probably don't want to read the papers, but I will post up a short radio documentary on the effects of Chronic Stress and discusses the relationship between stress related illness and low occupational status.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011zmsk

I agree regarding autonomy but I don't think as many high paid jobs have autonomy as they used to

e.g. HT: if you are a new HT to a school and it fails Ofsted, you can get sacked - even though no reasonable person could expect you to turn around the school in the time you have worked there.

commercial companies are obviously much more cost focussed than before - so everyone needs to deliver more with less. the further up the chain, the more you must deliver - whether your resources are properly funded or not.

Oops

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011zmsk

well i don't know what sectors some of you work in, but my kids do PT in retail and also the care industry and they get paid by the hour, so the longer they work the more money they get.

managing a charity retail shop is surely not that stressful? its not as if you are making life/death decisions or ones that affect a companies future viability>?

You, I agree that high profile jobs have accountability. But it is easier to choose your holiday dates, be late as a one off if there is an issue, make choices because of higher salary. Even leave, knowing you are relatively employable. That's what I meant. Not that high paid jobs mean you get the chance to please yourself and not be held accountable. Actually, of course, you are accountable for the whole operation. You cant even blame the management

You cant even blame the management [shocked]

oh you can.....its just you!

But blaming myself is less satisfying, sadly. Though all too common....

I have been a senior manager in both the private and public sector , both times the further up the ladder I progressed the less I felt stressed because I had more autonomy. You also have a greater ability to outsource the parts of your job that create stress.

As a senior teacher I am much less stressed than I was as a new teacher. I have much more flexibility with my time, people tend to do as I ask whereas lower down the chain I sometimes had to battle to be heard. As a teacher the more senior you are the better they behave, again less to be stressed about !

Importantly a higher salary also means fewer money worries and perhaps a disposable income to do things that relieve stress. We can afford to have some kind of holiday or short break in every school holiday , if I wished to I can have a cleaner and a nanny or other help in the home. I can afford my gym, massages etc.

V interesting and good post, amici, thank you.

amici you make very good points.

I think there is an argument to be had about how we got ourselves into a situation where the finances of the country are bound up in one small industry being run by highly mobile people.

It probably wasn't a 'good idea'.

However, until we have something else to replace it, we are where we are. And a dying man doesn't shoot his horse in the desert. Even if he fucking loaths that horse!

As for foreigners not paying tax, well many of us earn money from lots of different juridictions. We don't pay tax in them all. We get exemptions. Then we pay our tax where we are domiciled. Surely that's only fair?

Lets discuss a low paid job with a huge amount of stress. I am a CEO in a charity - my pro-rata at 30 hours (as the charity can't afford me to be full time) is £23,000. At the moment, I am desperately trying to find a way to balance the books so we can stay open; trying to pacify my staff that they will still have a job next year, writing funding applications, filling in monitoring sheets to 'prove' we deserve the funding we get and going out doing presentations to schools and colleges. I work my days off as I have to in order to get things done.. This is the most stressful job I've ever had. And before anyone says it, yes, I am thinking of leaving It would be awful to have to, but financially and emotionally I cannot go on much longer :(

EeTraceyluv - very stressful job you have there - but very worthwhile too... I could not do it, I do not cope well with stress health wise.......

I have a low paid job - in a craft shop - crappy (NMW) wages, crappy hours (and not enough of them) , crappy travel too - but with the nicest people you could ever hope to meet, doing something I love - not keen on working on the till, but love doing and talking about the crafting... and would say my stress levels are extremely low - because of the positive environment I work in and the fact that I clock off and go after each shift... no extra worries..

I agree completely that salary is only determined by supply of and demand for a skillset a.k.a. how much are you needed to perform the task and how replaceable you are.

so saying an unskilled worker should earn more does not equate to any practical change or even the hope of possible future change.

maybe the OP of "So what cuts have this 10% of people suffered?" should be replaced with "How does a country increase the economic value of its workforce?"

you by requiring every 16-25 year old to be either in work or education/training? Can you force people to upskill, or do you just provide for the motivated ones who want to do it and will be committed?

To reply to the OP:

I think there is a problem with your question. You can only suffer from cuts if any govt expenditure actually heads in your direction in the first place. For someone quite well off, who dutifully hands over their chunk of tax, with no cash/benefits flowing in the other direction - for them, what exactly can be cut?

Child benefit (a recognition that parents of all incomes have lower disposable incomes than their childless peers) was the only thing left. I suppose universal healthcare/education could be ended. But I wouldn't fancy being part of the state system in 20 years time if that happened.

All you can really do to hurt the well off is to increase tax.

Personally, I'd hit inheritances and investment income harder - why tax 'earned' income more heavily then 'unearned' income?

As for 'earned' income taxes, I'd say they are high enough. Including both forms of NI, the upper bands are are:

• 51% above £41k or so,
• 67% when personal allowances are withdrawn,
• 53% above £150k (the 'additional' band) Maybe they could all be set at ~60% and that would up the tax take? Maybe it would? Beyond that it would probably reduce tax revenue. I mean, if you were set to keep 33p of every extra £1 you earned, with the govt keeping 67p, what would you do? Probably stick more in your pension so the govt gets 0p of that money, I reckon.