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?!!

Why can people not have a discussion about something without being accused of being envious? Most people on this thread have just been discussing their own personal experiences.

A couple of posts back, someone mentioned knowing a secretary on £30k. Whereas I live in a really low salary area and the PA to the chief executive where I work (a business with 150 employees) gets about 17k and the company accountant (a qualified chartered accountants with about ten years experience) doesn't even earn 30k. The difference in salaries around the UK is huge.

I think a lot of people find Mumsnet through the education boards specifically looking for private schools reviews. Has Mumsnet ever had an anatomy's census? It started out with a handful of wealthy white women in london so hardly surprising that it continues to skew that way.

• 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.*

Yes this does make complete sense

I don't earn anywhere near 80k but I know a fair few people who do but then they all work very hard and their work/life balance suffers massively. Very successful in their fields. I earn about a quarter of that but work part time on purpose. I was surprised that 80k is the top 5%. Thought it would be over 100k ish

@BerwickLad Geraldine Gecko to you 😂😂

I don’t think there’s any point in pretending anything on a totally anonymous forum. Nobody knows you - it’s meaningless.

I live in a part of London where most people probably earn over £80k. I don’t know anyone around here whose DC aren’t in independent schools and those are £8k a term by secondary age. Most people have at least 2 DC in the schools - so, based on 2 DC that’s £48k year before anything else. To pay that you need to earn £96k pre tax. Of course, some people may have family help, I don’t know, but many do not. At the prep school level, it’s at least 70% SAHM (as am I). At secondary, that figure is harder to gauge because you have less contact with other mums, but it’s certainly not 2%! It would be at least half, I’d guess,

If you have a look on the secondary education boards - threads for the SW London independents and the 11 plus for all the various schools, you can see that there are many many people on MN in this demographic. They are applying for certain schools in this area and it’s a whole rigmarole that’s you simply couldn’t make up unless you were in it.

Salary may not even be relevant to the government statistics because many people (DH’s in the main I have to be honest) have founded and sold companies. They’ve been self-employed mainly, so income has been highly variable. For instance. my DH was one of the founders of a “.com” which sold for over £1 billion. He still works and employs around 150 ish people, plus others abroad, some of whom are on at least £150k plus. I know people will say this is a stealth boast, but it shouldn’t matter because this is anonymous. I have no need to make this up. I just wanted to say that people are probably not making things up on MN. If anything, they may be playing things down because they know the reaction they’re likely to get in here. In our area, someone like my DH is not particularly “stand out.” Not at all. He’s fairly typical. I know someone whose shares in a company were at least £250 million and probably more - his wife is a mum and she may be on here. I know several people who came into that kind of money. People will say I’m making this up, but I’m not. These are real people we’ve known since our earlier 20s and very normal.

I don't necessarily think that working hard always equates to a high income. I've met some really smart people over the years who've mastered the art of 'working smart' (their words, not mine) but granted their in the minority. I've also worked with a bunch of assholes (and still do at times!)

@KimchiLaLa there an 'income' thread on MN? Am I reading this right?

@isabellerossignol The disparity in salaries for the same role is probably down to age. The accountant is 40 and the medical secretary is 50.

Hard to say how many people on here are lying. In my group of friends generally 80k plus isn't unusual. We all live in Surrey and most work in London. In our 40s and mainly all own houses. Mainly our kids are in state education (one friend has her kids in private). Don't feel ridiculously rich but have a comfortable lifestyle. Houses are expensive so a decent amount of income goes towards that I guess. I don't feel we are richer than most where we live but in the end you tend to compare yourself with those around you!

"they're"...dammed predictive text! 🙈

I definitely don't earn that. My wages are set to be £11k this year working full time in a school really need to find a better paid job but I love it here. I think slot of people lie on here.

Oh and I live in Surrey and know no one on 80k but then again I do live on an estate.

What is the actual point on lying on MN though? Is that an actual thing? As in, what is the point?

Income is all relative though, I have high outgoings due to mortgage so disposable income isn't as much as it would be if all of my salary was my own.

Like a lot of people god help me if I lost my job, sure as hell the state wouldn't bloody help me!

The people you see on income threads are self selecting (highly likely)

This. No matter how much people say they're not bragging, people who earn more clearly do like to talk about it more. Even in this thread, which isn't remotely asking people how much they earn, you've got numerous people posting about how much they or their husband earns!

When someone posts asking salaries, it attracts responders who feel happy (smug) and want to tell you. Therefore the high earners are over represented (even if mumsnet itself is representative, which most likely it isn’t).

I don’t know anyone who earns 80k+ However if you work in the city you probably know few people who don’t earn £80k. Our personal anecdotal data is useless. We do know the actual data.
If you earn 80k or more then you are a high earner. You might not feel like it if you are servicing a high mortagage or paying school fees or exhorbitant London nursery for two children. However you are, by both world and UK standards extravagantly well off. Your lifestyle may be hugely stressful. You might be miserable. You might have just reason to feel hard done by in some way. But you are rich. It’s statistically fact.

I think BerwickLad was joking

The point is, what does it matter what you earn? It only matters to you. Everyone is different and that's life. Some earn more than others, some earn less than others. All to often you hear of people who are deemed to be 'high earners' being chastised for it, as though they should apologise. Hell no, not as long as they contribute as they should to society.
Would we chastise people for earning what we deem to be a low salary? No way would we, as that would be wrong. So why doesn't the same apply both ways?

It doesn't matter who earns what, or at least it doesn't to me. It matters if that you're a good person. Life goes up and down, always be nice on the way up, you'll sure meet those same people on the way down.

@NightsOfCabiria I think BerwickLad is funny, MN needs more of that kind

People do make up complete shit on here, remember when that poster got caught out posting pictures of a 5 star paris hotel as their bedroom?

hy they do this I have no idea, but there are so many liars around.

Wealth inequality does matter, massively.

The disparity in salaries for the same role is probably down to age. The accountant is 40 and the medical secretary is 50.

But where I Iive a medical secretary wouldn't earn 30k regardless of age because the salary scale stops far below that.

Would we chastise people for earning what we deem to be a low salary?

Are you new to mumsnet? People are chastise here all the time for earning low salaries! You might live in the far north of Scotland, have a husband who works on an oil rig so he's away for weeks at a time, a child with multiple disabilities and an elderly mother reliant on you for day to day help, so you only work a few hours a week. As sure as night follows day, someone will scold you for being financially reliant on a man, not paying tax therefore not funding the NHS, and not being hard working enough otherwise you'd be earning a big salary.

I live in a part of London where most people probably earn over £80k

But that is a very very isolated bubble and while the low paid workers you encounter may not live locally, unless they are the DC of the people you mention and still live with their parents, presumably you still come across teachers, nurses, doctors receptionists, retail, leisure and hospitality workers, cleaners, childcare workers, bin people and a whole myriad of workers who don't earn anywhere near £80k but still exist in your life and probably outnumber your immediate neighbours.

I live in a very affluent part of the SE and a lot of people here are high earners - many of the techie people here definitely earn over £80k. However lots of couples here both work high paid jobs so they may not individually earn £80k but their household income is large (so one earns £70k pa and the other £60k pa).