To wonder what a ‘good wage’ is?

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Not really an AIBU but something I’ve been pondering on, and posting here for traffic and opinions.

I often see people mentioning that someone earns ‘a good wage’ or indeed a high wage, but what that means in practice is clearly dependent on many factors, not least the area someone lives in but also their dependents.

I work in an industry where I talk to people on very high wages all the time about their jobs, which I think skews my view of what’s normal. I was involved in a discussion in another forum recently where it was mentioned the average salary at the moment is £27,000. Of course this is a mean average, skewed by a few very high salaries, and most people are below that. But many people were commenting that they didn’t know anyone who earned that much and had never earned anywhere near that themselves.

I’ve also been fascinated by this calculator from the Institute of Fiscal Studies that shows where households fall in the stratification of the country www.ifs.org.uk/wheredoyoufitin/
I think a lot of people would be surprised by it. When DP and I each earned the average salary (no kids) we were still in the top 25/30% ish of households which seems mad, and we live in an expensive area.

I’m wondering - what do you think a ‘good wage’ is, and at one point does something become a high wage?

honeyroar my best friend and her husband earn a lot but she is always claiming they have no money, it's crazy! I don't think they have any idea of the real world.

I'm on 50k, single parent and seem to always be waiting for payday ha, I'm a firm believer in that everyone lives to their means regardless!

We earn about £50,000 between us (which seems like a lot to me) and are struggling to buy a house.

I guess a lot depends on what is expected. I wouldn’t want to be head of the bbc for £70k I wouldn’t want other people lives in my hand for any amount of money.

There are a lot of aweful jobs I wouldn’t want to do for a great wage, think sewage or cleaning blood from murder scenes. I certainly wouldn’t do them for £50k

My DH is on £80k I consider us to be comfortable. I used to think he was on a good wage, but the hard (mentally hard) work and the responsibility he has means it’s a fair wage.

Having responsibilities or specialist knowledge means what some would consider a “good” wage really isn’t.

Depends what your outgoings are. I earn 35k and husband a little more. We have 1 child, 2 cars on loan , 1 foreign holiday per year, small mortgage, no debts, £500 on food, £200 on petrol, usual bills. I spend too much on clothes and DH spends v little. I would say we feel comfortable. We have savings but sometimes are low on funds at the end of the month. F in L thinks we are hard up.

blacktea Its eyeopening because earning £19k a year isn't actually what they are earning. We are fooling ourselves when we look at wages without looking at other sources of income such as benefits.

As a high earning couple .... I am aware of how privledged we are and remind my partner constantly . I am from a northern family , first to go to uni , parents gave me a comfortable upbringing on £40k .

I earn over double that but our living expenses so high.

To be perfectly honest with you London is a bubble . I live in an area which is fairly expensive , and I socialize with my peer group from uni who are all 25 and earning £28k plus ( one as high as 68k in finance ).

It is a bubble . I work in a company as HR where the lowest salary is 32k and the highest earners are on £600 a day contracts . Again , this is a bubble and part of working in the tech industry .

I appreciate that I am very very privledged. Life here is pretty expensive but I appreciate everyday how lucky I am to be able to go out and carelessly spend £11 on lunch at pret. Stupid I know.

The thing is some people aren’t as outward looking or have much self awareness and assume that the rest of the country live just like them when they really really don’t .

NameChanger22 you can’t live comfortably on £20,000 where I am. Unless you have a partner who earns that or more. I couldn’t rent a flat on my own here on that money, let alone all the other costs of life.

*we as a household earn over that sorry

It seems I had a median salary in 2015 but no pay rises at all for past four years mean that I am now way below.

An awful lot of people live on very little money. It should shock none of us.

When I say "good wage", I mean about £27K.

Incidentally, I don't like the Mumsnet habit of using "good wage" or "comfortable" or even "well off" because it menas different things to different people.

If its relevant to the thread- I just put my actual income. (which is £29,000 pro rata) I think the squeemishness about discussing money really prevents us from reaching clarity. And is irrelevant on an anonymous forum anyway.

I think it depends on age. Someone mid to late 20s, I would think £30k was a good wage. Someone who'd been working for 20 years, I would think £30k was a low wage.

riledandharrassed you’re very right. I think part of the problem is we don’t talk about what we earn, and mostly socialise with people like ourselves, so we think we are the normality even if high earners. We all need to be more willing to be open. I see it all the time here when people say ‘can you just get a cleaner’ like that’s normal and not a luxury.

Well fuck a duck. According to the calculator posted at the start of the thread*, I am in the top 10% in the UK in terms of disposable income. I "only" earn 35k but it's because I have no dependents.

Wonders why I am still in my overdraft every month!!

www.ifs.org.uk/wheredoyoufitin/

Average salary calculations will include everyone from young people just stating on the career ladder to older people working part time and mother or fathers working just a few hours in order to care for their children etc. Therefore, the average salary is skewed and for someone working full time, and in their 30's or 40's average salaries will actually be higher for that group.

"Half of the country earns less than £19,000"

What's the source for this? Full time salary or part time? Either way I don't believe it.

We have a joint income of around 100k, I'd say we are doing ok.

I don't work full time but financially it's not necessary which is nice. I have been thinking about whether to work to develop my career but not worrying about income has made me to decide to concentrate on other things instead.

Tech is quite a good area and recruitment agencies and also communities ( I’m in a few that do this ) actively survey their members and share results so we all have a good reasonable idea of what to expect .

Here is an example : cogsagency.com/2016/08/144731/

Sorry lol at the people with household income of 100 and 84k respectively and think they aren’t rich and are doing ok. You’re in the top 5 percent of the UK . Let’s not be naive .

There was an interesting documentary on channel 4 called how rich are you and it showed how a lot of the top 5% don’t think they are rich because we all are constantly exposed to the lifestyles of the 0.0001% !!!

Fresta the average salary contains nobody who earns below the personal allowance amount. If these people were included, the average salary would be lower.

Disbelieve away
Percentile salaries for people who earn enough to pay tax.

for me, a joint income of 120K gross would be good where its about £60k each. that would be take home of £6,400 pcm.

i dont feel rich in the town i live in currently.

to be honest, income is only part of the well off equation, net assets are a huge part.

you could be earning £100K per year with a huge mortgage, credit agreement cars and massive childcare bills and you could find yourself with not swathes of money to play with after all those are paid.

We are supposed to be top 1% , late 40s. According to MN we are loaded and Are naive to thInk otherwise.

However loaded we are meant to think we are, I can’t see that we could ever afford to retire. In addition, jobs are very insecure, so our 8ncome could g9 from hero to zero in a matter of week.

If I've read that correctly, that's income of tax payers, which is different to salaries. Not all that income will be from employment.