To think £100k pa is NOT 'the squeezed middle'?

[ArsenicFaceCream]

Link

The article is very confidently attributing the definition to Danny Dorling, but did he really name this figure?!

These women are fools.

minipie
Isin I'm an example of someone who might be "frightened off". I'm a high earner, but we could manage on DH's earnings - so if my tax went up I might well decide it wasn't worth working any more (or at the very least I might move to a job with fewer hours and which pays less). My currently large tax payments would disappear.

Wouldn't someone else take the job you left?

Diversity is a good thing. Everyone stampeding to be a care-worker is no better in the long run than everyone deciding that Catford is the place to live. Dismissing 100K earners as the unthinking rich is no more well-founded than describing benefits claimants as lazy (if you wanted to you could get a job yadda yadda why do you keep a dog if you need the state to pay for it & so on).

This is what I mean by the 'rhetoric of hate and envy'. Tongue in cheek jokes about guillotines IMO undermine the social contract of us all being British citizens no less than Gary Barlow's dodgy tax affairs.

?
The rich don't necessarily add real value to the country, certainly not in proportion to the amount that they are rewarded, quite likely to be part of a rentier economy or practicing financial smoke and mirrors.
Surely you are not arguing that inequality is good for all of us and a more equal society is necessarily one which is poorer overall? ?

The issue is not the high earning employees leaving. Their jobs become vacant and just get filled with the next high earning lawyer/doctor employee. The issue is with the high earning business owners leaving.

minipie, change the flipping record - the rich are always threatening to leave if they don't have things their own way. Hasn't brought down society yet. What has crashed the economy is listening to the rich and taking them seriously - turns out that was a massive mistake.

YY.

Why all the threats? Why don't they just go?

Because they are essetially 7 year olds threatening to run away from home. Same motivation.

Also remember people don't just work to earn money, they work because they enjoy it, gives them status etc.. As a rule after you get past a reasonably low amount paying someone more money doesn't make them better or more likely to stay in their job.

The rich are quite likely to be practising financial smoke and mirrors?

What a load of rubbish.

Its a bit of a shame that what was a quite interesting thread about what £100k buys you has deteriorated into this agin.

Spindarella not necessarily: 1) others might take the same view as me, that it's not worth working as hard for less take home pay and 2) my company can't recruit just anyone. Yes of course, one person can be replaced. But let's say 20% of every law firm's workforce takes the same view as me and resigns. The law firm can't just go out and hire that many good lawyers. You could say, oh well they'll have to hire less good candidates then, so what. But in that case, the clients will take their custom elsewhere (abroad). Same goes for pretty much every high earning industry.

edam have you actually looked at any history? High tax rates caused large numbers of high earners to move abroad in eg the 1970s. Not an economic high point. Moving is far easier and more attractive now than it was then, so I suspect would happen far more. And you're still not addressing my point about people choosing to stop work.

Suzanne I don't think that having high earners is the problem. It's having a LOT of people on low income that skews up this median income, etc.

Isn't it better to improve the income of those lower down, and get people to work when they physically can? Tax revenue would increase and there would be more equality.

Taxing the rich does not get rid of the fundamental problem that we have a lot of low income people in the UK. Maybe those multinationals are on to something, thinking the UK is not really a developed country.

A so-called fair country as people say on this thread is hardly ever fair and admirable in practice...

The guillotine reference is not a tongue in cheek joke it's a reminder that the peasants will revolt if their overlords take the piss too much.
I'm not suggesting that we are close to that situation, I'm sure the 'powers that be' are very careful to avoid a situation where the mob perceives such vast injustice that it takes to the streets.
Ultimately people respond badly to being unfairly treated, yes some deserve a higher income than other but no one is worth 100x more than another person, when a few are vastly more wealthy than the many that is manifestly unfair ?

spinadrella - the job I left I started after mat leave - and I put on relatively onerous requests about part time working, WFH & so on. My boss wasn't keen - he said a grudging 'yes' - but said that he would keep recruiting for a 'more suitable candidate'. Six months later (& 2 round of adverts) - the job was still mine. I don't know if they replaced me after I left.

Best way to reduce city salaries is to qualify for and apply for city jobs (and encourage our DC to do the same). The basic transaction is that the employer pays the least they can to get the job done. This is the same in the call centre (oversupply of candidates meaning there is a need for minimum wage legislation) and in a law firm (undersupply of candidates meaning you have to try to stifle the remuneration offered).

Suzanne If I look back at how some people took free education for granted, etc. ...I'm sorry, but some people are worth 100x more than others. Some people on such high incomes are also corporations of their own and employ other people.

suzanne - I didn't say that a more equal society is poorer. I said that an envy-driven spiteful society is poorer.

My grandparents lived through a revolution - an uprising against fat cat landowners. The farms were taken over, a large amount of spiteful wrecking took place, people who were perceived as over-influential were imprisoned. Then the country starved. The crops failed - corruption took the place of previous power structures - people turned on each other. It's a giggle to threaten guillotines - but a bit ignorant really.

Some may generate large amounts of worth but no person is an island, those who are 'corporations of their own' got there by taking advantage of existing political, economic and social infrastructure and institutions.
No one is entirely self made, he or she is in part profiting from the efforts of others and taking a disproportionate share of the benefits.

'I didn't say that a more equal society is poorer. I said that an envy-driven spiteful society is poorer'

You are still presenting a false dichotomy

1. The less well off still know they are a lot better off than in other countries which is why in some other countries you get riots and destruction and foundations of new religious states and the like but in the UK people have a little moan, realise they are actually okay and just get on with it.We are nowhere near revolution yet particularly as the rich are bearing a higher amount of tax than ever in British history.

1. I have never had any problems with inequality. It is in our genes. Some people are born with a low IQ or ugly face or nasty personality. Such is life. You just have to make the best of the band that is dealt you through sheet hard work which most people do whatever their income level.

1. Studies have shown that the people would rather have less money if it means others do not have more - no wonder all religions make jealousy and envy a sin - it eats at the soul and never makes anyone feel much better. The studies include if you could get a £10k pay rise but your 2 friends at work got £20k pay rises would you take the pay rise? People say no.

1. Being in work and working full time and paying for childcare for several under 5s is expensive for most of us and means many in work end up with less net than some who are not in work. It is difficult if you want a welfare state but you also want to incentivise work.

1. I don't know why people mind if others have more than they have. All that really matters i life is being happy and healthy. Money does not hugely correlate to that so why do you covet your neighbour's ox or iphone?

Suzanne

What if some people make no effort whatsoever, but take and take and take?

What do we do with those people? You can't just concentrate your vitriol on the top end.

I don't know why people mind if others have more than they have.

I really don't give a crap about how much anyone else has. What I give a crap about is people whining that they're so poor because they can't afford private school fees when someone just down the road can't turn their heating on and is living on a diet of beans on toast.

People should know we're not born equal... It's nature. You'd have to genetically modify people for everyone to be equal and have the same chances in life.

It's not a dichotomy - it is a comment on the tone of this thread.

I am sorry that a care worker is poorly paid - but quitting my job and firing my nanny hasn't helped that one bit. Paying tax might have helped it.

And your salary does not measure your worth (unless you consider my current SAHM-dom to be worthless.

People should know we're not born equal... It's nature. You'd have to genetically modify people for everyone to be equal and have the same chances in life.

What if some people make no effort whatsoever, but take and take and take?

What do we do with those people? You can't just concentrate your vitriol on the top end.

Im not saying that isnt a problem, and I dont know how it should be solved.

Some may generate large amounts of worth but no person is an island,

Interesting use of the word 'worth'

Another point about labour mobility. My team at work (the one that found it hard to recruit necessary skills) was 3 Brits (2 in their fifties plus me), an Australian a French person and a guy from South Africa. The older Brits had paid off houses in Harrow and Wimledon with grown kids. The Ozzie and the SA were very open that they were working to earn enough to buy a plot of land back home. The French person was enigmatic. When I chucked it in - the team would have been a senior British layer and a junior layer of footloose travelling folk, who had already followed the money once, and would do so again. And who didn't really care about house prices, child benefit and guillotines.