To feel outraged at my friends re charity salaries?

[Pissedoffandbored]

Have a group chat going with a load of my girlfriends. There have been some additions to the group chat this week, some I know well and others are just acquaintances. One girl I don’t know sent a link to published salaries for charities. Girl didn’t know I work for a National Charity in a senior position and slated the amount I earn saying people don’t deserve to earn more than PM. At this point I interjected making her aware of my position and she proceeded to have a go at me. I defended my position but most of my friends agreed I earned too much since I worked for a charity.

So AIBU to be pissed off? Also, is this the general consensus or are my mates just dick heads?

Threads like this make me realise quite how this country got into the mess it's in - there is a large amount of fantasy thinking going on. Things cost stuff. People should be paid for their time. Charity isn't free.

And that’s why I don’t give to national or international charities anymore.

I’ve got a friend who works for a charity and when he was doing his expenses one day I heard him putting in a claim for a 2 mile car trip from his house to there local office. That just made me sick

And that’s why I don’t give to national or international charities anymore

So because someone claimed for mileage, you don't give to national or international charities?

Do you begrudge a teacher claiming for mileage if they go on a course?

Do you begrudge a doctor claiming mileage for a visit to a client?

Or should charity workers suck it up because they work for a charity?

Or should charity workers suck it up because they work for a charity?

IME one of the problems with working for a charity was the amount I was expected to do for free because it was a charity. My managers were all volunteer trustees and felt that because they gave to the charity, I should too. But they were far wealthier than I am. I just couldn't afford it. There were times working away from my usual site when it was costing me to work. Eventually I put my foot down and said I wouldn't work offsite unless I got reasonable out of pocket expenses.

he was doing his expenses one day I heard him putting in a claim for a 2 mile car trip from his house to there local office

If he usually works at that office then he shouldn't be claiming. If it's different from his normal place of work then he can legitimately claim. Either way, don't tar all charities with the same brush.

Its always "I've got a friend"

Actually I call bullshit.
You are trying to tell us that he bothered with the paperwork for a grand total of about 90p?
Then again you are trying to justify never ever giving to charity because somebody claimed 90p. How cheap are you?

I don't work for a charity but I claim for everything I'm allowed to claim for. 2 mile car journey, definitely. Piny of milk for the office, claim.

All these little things add up over a year. My "minor expenses that I'm unreasonable to claim for" come to about £10/month. That's £120 a year. I've got to earn about £200 to take home £120. So fuck that.

They are STAFF not volunteers.
Charities are just businesses that exist for the public good.
I can't believe some of the ignorance on this thread.
Of ALL the things to get annoyed about. An over privileged, racist, bafoon is very likely to become our PM soon. Kids are stabbing and shooting each other every week and there are no youth services left or any police to keep people safe because they have such reduced funding. We will likely have to pay £1000's for the NHS soon. There are 1000's of homeless people on the streets. We are destroying the planet. We might well still loose our place as European citizens.... but charity workers shouldn't get paid a decent wage for doing their jobs or claim any out of pocket expenses like bankers, MP's, Business people do?! Are you fucking joking? Get a bloody life!

I agree with you OP

I think such wages are outrages for the private sector too. Who needs that much money to have a good life? Plenty of highly qualified, very experienced, hard-working people could never even hope to get close to such wages.

By the metrics applied in this thread I guess they just "don't deserve it" somehow.

I think such wages are outrages for the private sector too. Who needs that much money to have a good life? Plenty of highly qualified, very experienced, hard-working people could never even hope to get close to such wages.

Oh ffs! Are people really this dense. If you didn't have high earners, low earners would earn even less. If the guy earning £150K for running a £100m firm can only earn £50K, then the guy earning £75K for running a £50m firm can only earn £25K. And so on down the scale, until you get down to the minimum wage, which will have to be reduced to about 23p an hour!!!

And if a firm makes £50m profit, and you can't pay the staff big money because "it's outrageous, who needs it", then where does the profit go? To the owners, who didn't do any work at all?

Why are people so insanely jealous of high earners?

Bullshit. If you didn't have such ridiculously high earners the gap between low and high earners wouldn't be so unreasonably high. It's because we, as a society, tolerate and celebrate this shit.

Like it is something to be proud of. It's not.

And profit can easily go back into the company. To raise everyone's wages, not just those of the top layers. To to hire more people to reduce the overall work-load. Or perhaps into training the next generation.

There are a million things a company can do with profit that do not include distributing wages unfairly.

It's because we, as a society, tolerate and celebrate this shit.

No - it's because we live in a free market with little regulation other than NMW. Wages are just supply and demand. If communism's your bag I understand your frustration though...

I always donate to the Salvation Army as that is the charity where you donation will have the biggest effect, rather than be eaten up by "admin costs"

I agree that there is a very important conversation to be had about the growing gap in wages etc but, my understanding that objections on this thread were due to the high wages paid in the charity sector.

I dont think it would be right, or in the best interests of the charity sector, if their wages were capped yet the private sector's weren't.

If you look at the very top of the charity sector they are clearly not capped but some a definitely not market rate. However it’s choice isn’t it. No one has to work for a charity.

There are some very silly ideas about limiting salaries which is akin to communism and just isn’t going to happen.

To the poster who thought the welfare state started in 1911, please read the Beveridge Report of 1942 and subsequent legislation that set up the NHS and other extensive benefits. The point I was making was that higher earners paying higher tax are needed by this country. In fact better off countries have more higher earners. So more tax income. This way families and those that need it are better supported. You cannot achieve this by low wages for all and false differentials. And yes, the CEO is worth zillions more than the shop assistant or cleaner. It’s all about who can do the job. There are not that many people who can be an effective CEO. It doesn’t matter if you are a nurse, a barrow boy or an engineer. Not everyone can actually run the show.

To the poster who thought the welfare state started in 1911, please read the Beveridge Report of 1942 and subsequent legislation that set up the NHS and other extensive benefits.

Odd assumption that i haven't. I mean admittedly I've read Hobhouse's 1947 report on national parks more recently but still, it's an odd assumption to make. It's fairly uncontroversial Bubblesbuddy to see NI as an important part of the history of the welfare state. It is odd to see the welfare state as suddenly arriving post WW2 as if it hadn't been gradually evolving.

Arguments that not everybody can run the show would be so much more effective if we weren't currently led by a shambling bunch of Eton-educated donkeys. With apologies to the donkeys. I'm sure they'd be better at it.

"Are people really this dense. If you didn't have high earners, low earners would earn even less. If the guy earning £150K for running a £100m firm can only earn £50K, then the guy earning £75K for running a £50m firm can only earn £25K. And so on down the scale, until you get down to the minimum wage, which will have to be reduced to about 23p an hour!!!"

Why? Why couldn't you just have a more equal country. More equal economies with less difference between the higher earners and the lower ones do exist.

I’ve worked for massive companies turning over many millions to little ones turning over less than a million and the salaries differ by only minute amounts

I wouldn’t expect CEO’s to be earning huge salaries but they may get larger dividends

If everyone got paid more at larger companies as per the economies of scale argument posted by a PP, then no one would go for jobs with smaller companies.

I always donate to the Salvation Army as that is the charity where you donation will have the biggest effect, rather than be eaten up by "admin costs

How do you know that? The Salvation Army employs lots of people who do work in the community. Those workers need 'admin' support - such as people to do the IT, run the databases, provide office support, maintain the buildings, run payroll, organise training, recruit volunteers etc....

webrecruitment.salvationarmy.org.uk/ce0024li_webrecruitment/wrd/run/etrec106gf.display_srch_all?WVID=1734341jyu&LANG=USA

There's an admin support role at £20,514 in Wales

Drug and alcohol support worker £23,700

Accountant in London £53,000

All those roles are needed to ensure the charity can do its work. Which of those are 'admin' costs and which are the ones that are helping 'do good'?

Always funny seeing people get frothed up about a senior exec doing a job earning c. £100k. What should the charities do, offer their CEO £18k to save money for core activities, and see if they can poach a supervisor from the fruit and veg aisle of Asda in, to do a CEO job, requiring 20 years of business and sector experience, as effectively but for a 90% discount? The money they would save in wages would be lost in the first few days of that persons tenure.

Our ceo got paid $80 million last year and in the time he’s been in the role our share price dropped substantially. Spare your outrage for that scale of over pay instead.

In a big successful company, the CEO might earn £5m /year. There will be maybe 50 senior people less than this, but well over £150K. When we have a cap of £50K, because apparently no one needs more than this, the CEO will be on £50K, and those others will have to be on less, say £30K to £45K. The people that were on £50K before the cap, now need to drop to £25K, and the people on £40K need to drop to £20K and so on. Because you need a differential to reward people for success and progress. Hence the lowest paid workers will end up earning far less than they do now.

People just never grasp this basic fact of economics....you cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of it.

I find it pretty funny when people say that objecting to six-figure salaries is the same thing as demanding that everyone make no more than 20K a year. Straw-man argument. No one on this thread has said this.

It seems to me a tactic of putting words in people's mouths, because deep down you know they actually have a point.

So who decides the cap then?
Who decides that X amount of money is the most you can earn for doing each position? How would that be policed world wide?
My partner spent 20 years living in Europe because he earned more there doing the same job than in the UK.
Would lower wages here mean we lose our talented skilled staff to another country?
What would be left with then?

The only people I begrudge earning the amount they do is footballers. I love the game but think they are dramatically overpaid. However their career can be short as can their life depending on how they lead it. I am sure many a fan will tell me why Beckham was worth his pay cheque.

That is a discussion worth having.

Whether it should the cap be or should it just be 70% or more taxes. Right now I feel like we are doing a hell of a lot of mental gymnastics to prevent ourselves as a society from having the discussion about what should decide income and what is fair or not.