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.

PartyMatron I see your point - I came to the UK for work myself so I'm not unfamiliar with going where the going's good, and agree that the world is becoming more and more like that. But I was more meaning that the implication that established high earners with families and structure in place here will en masse leave the country seems a bit of a hollow threat. I do think that probably the majority of the young people who follow the high paying jobs intend, eventually, to go home and settle there. Lots don't of course, and I would like to see figures as I'm not sure, but it seems that way to me.

LittleBear - yes there is that. But are there enough opportunities like that to move enormous swathes of high earners out of the UK? Enough to seriously affect the tax base? There could well be, I wouldn't know. I also was under the impression that a lot of those moves are seen as temporary - again I could be wrong about that.

I completely agree with everything wordfactory has said.

I am also smiling at the notion that people who earn £100k are all squirrelling away their vast fortunes in secret offshore accounts and avoid taxes. The vast majority of people on that kind of salary are on PAYE, or they run a small but successful local business and they have an accountant called Brian from Erith doing their tax returns and they treat him to lunch in a Harvester once a year for his trouble. It's hardly the stuff of hedge funders.

Poor Brian from Erith.

I hope he doesn't google himself and find this merciless lampooning

I know Brian from Erith.

Did Brian from Erith meet Ed Miliband in the par, by any chance? And does he need help?

in the park, I'm not sure what place 'in the par' would be.

Suzanne

I get paid what I get paid because not many people have my skills. Not too dissimilar from TheWordFactory's narrative of supply and demand.

I benefitted from an international background. I attended schools in other developed and emerging countries, learned different languages and customs. I am also quite good at maths (genes), writing (genes) and even design after watching older sisters pursue careers in that field, and which I could have gone into had I wanted to. I have a natural flair for legal issues due to my father (and half of my mum's family) being lawyers.

All of this - surprise, surprise - benefits you when you are working for a global company. I can easily compete with colleagues who have gone to public schools (and who are mainly male!). I can work across borders when my other colleagues mainly educated in Britain hit a brick wall.

This is unique in a way because no education can give you such a broad set of skills. And yet, it's vey much in demand.

Yes, I have benefitted from having parents that were always top of their class. I have benefitted from a family that was affluent, and whose affluence meant I could have an international education. A family that (without me knowing!) taught me things that have stuck until now.

Should I stop providing my DC with the same benefits gifted to me just because it would be fairer on everyone else??? I don't think so.

I have just recently attended a meeting where people were complaining about the talent pool available to our company. There is obviously something going wrong in UK state education (because there are loads of unemployed graduates, no?) which means that people who benefitted from the sort of background I have will always be a step ahead. What exactly is going wrong?

That I don't know.

People need to get real and over themselves about what squeezed middle actually means

I thought it referred to the fact that what is commonly considered to be a 'middle class' lifestyle is no longer affordable on a median income?

SnowBells, thanks for the information that's very interesting but I'm not sure why you've addressed it to me, I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't do the very best you can to help your kids get on in life, I certainly do :)

No one on £100k expects anyone to feel sorry for them. The whingers in the article need to kick themselves up the bottom and work harder. They might be in part time work (I think from memory the first did some kind of low wage pottering around type of work hoping her husband would earn more. If you want more, earn more.

The issue in most countries is how much tax should we take from those who earn more whichi s not so much it acts as a disincentive. I mentioned above my brother (doctor) stopped working at weekends when the state was taking 50% of those extra earnings. If people work less hard less tax is generated. As I don['t think more money makes people happier that of course may not matter. Just about all the religions and indeed many atheists think being content with what yo have and simplicity in live can be the key to happiness and any psychiatrist will tell you it also relates to if you get enough sleep, eat well, aren't a heavy drinker and smoker etc.

I don't think income inequalities matter and I favour low taxes and a small state. A lot of people think those of us women who earn a lot have had it all handed to us on a plate yet every time a mumsnetter who works full time and earns a lot writes her story is usually decades of hard work on a scale other women don't want. Has anyone else on here worked for 30 years without even maternity leaves like I have? I am not asking for sympathy but it can be the tiny choices we make bit by bit over the years on daily basis deferring our "jam until tomorrow" which tends to mean some people are better off that others. Some come into a bit of money and spend it on a nail bar (I have never been to a nail bar in my life), others will use it to pay off part of their mortgage.

What I suspect we can all agree with is whinging people like in the article and on mumsnet should stop their moaning about how unfair things are (don't read my comments on the mansion tax thread though.....) and get on with changing them, working harder, taking that second job, getting that PhD or whatever it takes to ensure you earn what you think you deserve rather than sitting around saying life is unfair.

£100k is £64k net of PAYE deductions.

                            Annually	      Monthly	Weekly

Gross Income £100,000.00 £8,333.33 £1,923.08
Tax-Free Allowance £7,475.00 £622.92 £143.75
Taxable Amount £92,525.00 £7,710.42 £1,779.33
Tax £30,010.00 £2,500.83 £577.12
National Insurance £5,611.92 £467.66 £107.92
Net Take-Home £64,378.08 £5,364.84 £1,238.04

"No one on £100k expects anyone to feel sorry for them" + "as anyone else on here worked for 30 years without even maternity leaves like I have? I am not asking for sympathy but it can be the tiny choices we make bit by bit over the years on daily basis deferring our "jam until tomorrow" which tends to mean some people are better off that others. "

Greengrow, you didn't actually invent the concept of delayed gratification. And if you are bright enough to make a few bob, I'm sure you are bright enough to understand that equally bad luck can hit anyone. Even if you think you are insured up to the hilt, bad stuff can happen and suddenly change your circumstances.

Snow seems to be hearing the voices of phantom sans-culottes Suzanne. She has been making remarks to them for a while now

Ooops formatting went a bit wrong there!

Atticus, which year are you using?

Yes, bad luck can happen but most women on mumsnet who don't earn much and are unhappy about it can see it was their choice - their choice not to work at school exams or their poor choice of course at university or their choice to go part time or flexi time or whatever. If they are happy with their choices that's great. if they aren't then they might need to make a choice do to something about it. Of course I could lose my mind tomorrow and not be able to work but for most people where they are is largely down to the effort they put in and choices they made.

Yes I know what the net of £100k would pay (my daughter's pay just went up to that level actually), only just over what 5x school fees were costing me at one point. it is still a good amount compared to most people.

I don't wake up every day happy I earn X. I wake up happy I'm not ill and that I am happy. I would put mental and physical health above money any day.

Oops yes sorry! This is correct for 14/15

Gross Wage £100,000 £8,333 £1,923
Taxable Wage £90,000 £7,500 £1,731
Tax Paid £29,627 £2,469 £570
Tax Free Allowance £10,000 £833 £192
National Insurance £5,231 £436 £101
Take-home pay £65,142 £5,428 £1,253

I adore the way you talk about PT work Greengrow

As though it were kibbutzing or kerb-crawling or joining a cult.

(in career terms, that is)

Sorry I get names mixed up here sometimes because the thread moves so fast.

My point is that supply and demand is very much in place, and that this whole call from people to have a fairer society doesn't quite work when it suddenly means it will affect their own brood.

What I see in the Daily Mail article is a lot of entitlement, and I think it's fairly widespread these days. In my thirties, I didn't make 100k but I wasn't far off it, and yet I didn't feel wealthy at all. That is because I bought my first flat and put down a hefty deposit that I'd been saving for years, then I overpaid almost every month, and I also maxed out my very generous pension plan at work. I was almost the only one in my group of friends with a City job, and except me, everyone else was having a whale of a time, going out often, getting the latest iGadget, going abroad often...now that we are all in our early forties, the tables have turned, and I'm doing rather well (admittedly, partly through marriage but also my career boomed) and many of my friends are now looking to buy their first property and finding that it was never easy, but it's got tons harder. So they feel cheated, because they can't afford the careless lifestyle they had in their thirties. I was lucky in that, by watching my dad lose his job twice when I was young, I learnt how important financial security is for me. So now I feel wealthy because I don't have to worry about paying the mortgage off, or what would happen if I get sick. Manicures, and foreign holidays? Nice to have indeed, but not "a need".

I agree that bad luck can happen to anyone.

However, I don't think we should court it, as some seem to. And when we're having a run of good luck; capitalise on it.

I suspect many of us who earn six figures and are posting don't fritter away our money on manicures and gadgets. My income has trebled in the past year and a half and whilst this has meant that we've been able to do some things its actually much need work on the house and paying down some of the mortgage.

The women in the article have clearly been chosen because they are living way beyond their means.

Oh come on Greengrow. What about people whose parents were abusive, or taught them education didn't matter? What about people with health problems or disabilities? What about people who had to leave school early to look after a parent/sibling? What about the people who were bullied so badly they stopped going to school? What about people whose IQ is just too low for them ever to earn 100k? A lot of people have very limited choices, and very limited opportunity to ever earn high amounts, through no fault of their own. I'd say that's far more common than people who could have earned mega bucks but made poor choices.