To think more than 1.6mil ppl are on £80k if mumsnet is anything to go by?!?

[KimchiLaLa]

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/22/question-time-80000-super-rich-earning-workers

This article is saying 1.6mil ppl are on 80k. How is that possible when a salary thread comes up on mumsnet, practically everyone claims to have a 100k plus salary?!!

It’s Mumsnet. People lie, exaggerate and troll constantly. I take everything I read with a pinch of salt.

I have an okay salary but feel terribly poor when anyone posts and mentions it as it's rarely less than £60k.

This forum has an awful lot of obvious liars and deluded fantasists.

(a) Mumsnet is not a representative sample.

(b) At least 75% of everything posted on Mumsnet is imaginary.

I would have definitely assumed that WAY more than 1.6 m people earn more than £80k.

I don't believe 95% of the population are on less than £80k. Put it that way !

On MN we usually talk household income.

Yet 6% of UK children are privately educated. Of course all those parents are on Mumsnet. 😂

As far as I am aware, I don’t know anyone who earns 80k.

One in five people earn under the living wage.

I don't believe 95% of the population are on less than £80k. Put it that way !

Really? Isn't this an accepted IFS statistic? The average salary is just under £30k isn't it, why is it hard to believe that almost everybody earns under £80k when it's almost 3 times the average?

I take everything I read on here with a pinch of salt. Most of the children are highly intelligent as well with straight 9's in GSCE's.

Ha ha, I know. Mumsnet is another world. I only know 1 person who earns that. One of my friends is an MP for Christ's sake so I'm not exactly moving in deprived circles.

The MN demographic is middle class in the main and women with more time on their hands to be on the internet than average. Therefore, there will be higher than 5% of the MN population who have a DH on >80k. Ditto private education.

Some of the women here spout a load of old bunkum, that's why.

Maybe it’s just that they all congregate on here like expensive rats

Of course the majority of mners earn over 80k.
They also have husbands who work away from home all the time and have totally outing hobbies that only 6 people in the entire world do.
They have 2 children, a boy & a girl of course, called Tarquin Otto Milo Westmorely-Quebec and Ophielia Delilah Montgomery Westmorely -Quebec.
Of course their ridiculous double barrelled surname is entirely hereditary and dates back to the time Jesus was born.
They drive a huge range rover because they simply have to as no other vehicle can manage the tarmaced road in which they live.
They have never, ever fed their children anything other than vegan food and purified water. Their children never wear pink, sequins, headbands, bobles, stripes, logos, denim, or any form of man made fibres. They only wear ecru and green in pure linnen .

A few points:

• 80k puts you in the top 5% of UK earners, not in the wealthiest 5% of households. The wealthiest people in the UK are usually living off private inheritance etc so there are plenty more very wealthy people than those 1.6M

• There are often two earners in a household these days, so consider that household incomes cited on Mumsnet could well be two incomes added together.

• Mumsnet is an anonymous board and no one is held accountable for the validity of anything they post.

I'm on 17,300 a year and most of my friends dont work (18 on a gap year before uni / half my friends at uni use bank if mum and dad / the other half spunk their loan and starve

There are a few possible explanations for the perceived disparity:

1. The ONS figures are bollocks (frankly unlikely)
2. The Mumsnet populations doesn’t completely reflect the UK population income spread (highly likely and in fact born out in every MN survey ever)
3. The people you see on income threads are mostly lying (some of them definitely - I suspect not most)
4. The people you see on income threads are self selecting (highly likely)
5. You’re taking more notice of the people saying they’re high earners and ignoring the “normal” posters (I’ve definitely seen this on threads about income/holidays which aren’t objectively fairly balanced with a couple of posters from the very top end but other posters get very worked up and start TAATs portraying them as 90% fantasists/millionaires - they just haven’t clock the majority of unexciting posts at all).

I’m assuming an equal mix of 2/4/5 and a tiny bit of 3.

Mumsnet isn't remotely indicative of the general population. The core of There are a high proportion of users who are ABC1 which is reflected in salaries that people earn.

Plus a lot of people lie

Whoops “threads which are objectively fairly balanced”

I didn't know anyone on this growing up North. Definitely not. But I work in an affluent industry in London so I know a lot now! But appreciate this is a minority.

Apparently people in UK earning £80k pa are in the top 5%. Cant say I've ever thought about who earns what but 5% of the UK population is not high.

Of course, there will be people earning £79,990 pa too :-).

The average UK yearly salary is £35,423 for full time.
£52,500 in central London.