"Average wage £29,000"

[liketochange]

I've had an ad on my Facebook for one of those "your baby born on this day" type posters with today's stats, which includes the average wage of £29,000. I'm aware this is the average wage according to stats, but there were loads of comments saying that was wrong, "that's more like household" etc. AIBU to ask does £29k seems that unlikely to be average in your opinion? Do bigger salaries drag it up making it look unrealistic to most?

It’s really peed me off that you think those on high salaries don’t deserve them. High earners have generally worked their tits off to get where they are in an a highly skilled job and worked hard to achieve the necessary qualifications to be there. Often meaning time away from families and working late at home. I realise there are lower paid jobs where people work hard but salaries generally reflect the qualifications, skills and experience needed to do them. I do think the uk is expensive and salaries are too low but don’t insult high earners that it’s a doddle for them as it’s far from it. Most jobs that have a high salary and very demanding and consume your life more than you would like.

At the moment, everyone is bitter. The high earners are bitter that they pay so much tax and that tax gets wasted on benefits. They're also bitter that other people might be getting something for free that they're not or that they might have to work harder than other people.

Meanwhile, the lower earners are bitter that they aren't paid enough to live on. And also bitter that other people see them as scroungers even though they are often working harder than anyone and putting up with all kinds of stress.

The system is the problem. We need fairer pay/working conditions/tax/benefit system for everyone. We need to ban 0 hours contracts and demand a living wage just for starters. And, some people just need to stop being so greedy.

I agree with lottie. I see quite a lot of people on MN and elsewhere who define themselves as “ordinary” when they are actually in the 20th centile or lower. I once got into a huge row with someone who said that she’d advise any child from “an ordinary background” not to apply to Oxford because they wouldn’t fit in and there wouldn’t be anyone else they’d relate to. I said that this was terrible advice because such children might be slightly statistically underrepresented but would certainly find thousands of others like them at Oxford. It got very irate until I realised that when I said “ordinary” I meant families in the 25th to 75th percentile, whereas she was meaning it to mean the bottom 25th.

Sb74 - we do not live in a meritocracy. Don't try and pretend we do.

i don’t think it’s greed to want the best life for my kids. I do what I do to provide my children with a good life. A life that I didn’t have coming from a poor background. I have been through it all and want my kids to have better than me. I will never apologise for that.

I live in the NW and earn double that

However it’s commision, my basic is a lot less and obviously not guaranteed

I agree with @sb74

Yep, pretty average sounding to me.

Do you want to keep taking from those that are paid the least?

How do higher earners take away from those who are lower paid? If anything it would be the other way around as higher earners pay more task and lower earners receive more in benefits etc.

Thanks Alice.

There would very few people needing to claim benefits if everyone was paid properly in the first place. It's the poor propping up the rich, not the other way round. The poor do most of the necessary jobs that the rich wouldn't even consider doing.

What load of crap Mind. You really make no sense at all.

Sb74 - I feel sad that you can only see things from your perspective and empathy isn't on your radar. I'll leave you to your delusions.

LOL @ the UK being a meritocracy.

There would very few people needing to claim benefits if everyone was paid properly in the first place.

The inflation it would cause would mean more benefits were needed!

Look at Labour/Brown splashing the cash on tax credits and housing allowances - just pushed up housing costs meaning people ended up no better off.

Many high earners also provide employment....

mind is right. The U.K. economy would grind to a halt if the poor, low-paid menial workers all stopped doing their jobs. They are the cogs that keep businesses running at base level and are most instrumental in turning the profits that keep high earners in their positions.

The problem is the mentality that often comes up on here that if you work in a shop or are a cleaner then you simply didn’t try hard enough and therefore you don’t deserve a nice life, secure housing or security in general. You’re equating basic human needs with economic value, which is fundamentally wrong. So no, largely I would say high earners do not ‘deserve’ everything they earn when that far outstrips what anyone needs to fulfil their base needs, and lower earners deserve more to be able to fulfil these needs without being topped up by benefits. Plenty of people in high-earning jobs are there because of family connections and being born into wealth - the UK is not a meritocracy, but pretending it is makes the rich feel like they’ve earned everything they’ve got and worked for it. Someone once said on a thread not dissimilar to this, ‘what, so you want a society where everyone is treated equally regardless of their contribution?’ as if that was a really bad thing. I honestly cannot fathom how anyone can end up with that kind of toxic, greed-driven, frankly Trumpian mentality to think that people don’t deserve equal access to things to fulfil their basic needs because they earn less. Before I’m accused of being a bitter min wage worker I earn considerably more than 29k and am from a poor background - but I acknowledge the many privileges I have despite that, that are beyond my control, that allowed me to get where I am now

Amusingly enough I'd say my salary has always had an inverse relationship to how hard I've worked.

My lowest paid ever job was in a care home, my highest paid was back office support in an investment bank. The role in the bank involved being available long hours but the actual work was an absolute doddle with lots of time spent looking busy - my employer paid for my master's degree simply because I complained of boredom, and I received bonuses equal to my basic salary again, but I was bored out of my mind and began, after 5 years, to question the point of my existence because I was at work 50 plus hours a week doing utterly pointless tasks with no social usefulness whatsoever. My bosses and the extortionately highly paid consultants I worked with in the open plan office worked intensely and under great pressure about 5% of the time but also spent a lot of time chatting, surfing the internet and doing very little. Lots of them (90% male environment) stayed late doing nothing to avoid going home before their children were in bed and having to "help" at home.

I left t retrain to become a teacher on less than half the salary - far, far more work and stress but some purpose at least ...

I've changed career again since and found that as I work my way up I'm paid more to do less. DH pragmatically stayed in one career and often spends his days sending me links to things on the internet he wants me to read and discuss with him because he's bored at work - if I'm at work I usually don't have time, as having career changed twice I earn less so am working more intensely for my smaller salary...

I do think it's often the way of the world...

However I also think people who sell their souls to work all hours, even if it's mostly presenteeism, to the extent that they barely have time to see their children or enjoy leisure in order to have more money than they actually need are ultimately the biggest fools there are. Especially when they're working in jobs which are not socially useful.

The uk would grind to halt if higher paid workers stopped paying all their tax.

Sb74 the UK is a low tax country, especially by European standards.

Guess you pay 20% tax then?

In Belgium and Germany people genuinely pay 50% tax - unlike the UK where higher tax rate is only applied to the section of income over the threshold. Higher rate UK tax payers still pay no tax on the first 12k or so and basic rate tax on the next 20k etc depending slightly whether they live in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.

Sb74 I don't live in the UK. I actually lose 50% of my pay packet in non optional deductions.

Everyone pays 20% tax on the first part of their salary after the tax free amount , it is only the higher part that attracts the higher tax amount, do you pay different tax to everyone else Sb74, maybe some people pay different amounts, is none of your salary taxed at 20%?