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?!!

Everyone on Mumsnet has at least 2 degrees, at least one from “Oxbridge”, earns at least 100K and has children in the top 10% academically.

Two degrees ✔️
One from Oxbridge ✔️
Salary of >£100k ✔️
Child in top 10% academically ✔️

Looks like I’m a MN cliche

Oubliette - I have none of those things - I have a single degree def not from oxbridge .

Question though how do you know your child is in the top 10% ? Iike the idea of assigning percentages to my children

Three degrees ✔️
Two from Oxbridge ✔️
Salary of >£200k ✔️
Child in top 5% academically ✔️

Looks I'm better than a MN cliche 😎

I assumed top 10% since said child is in the top set at a selective school.

Who cares whether someone believes what you say about yourself on the internet? Bizarre.

Because some of us are here for informative, educated opinions and advice. And it's frustrating when you are trying to assist, or ask for assistance, whilst a total div is harping along, derailing the thread, because they can't accept that someone has achieved a certain level of success or education, or in general they feel has a superior aspect to their life.

It's like when you see a debate on some form of news programme. Say, on Astronomy. One one side, you'll have Professor Brian Cox, explaining clearly what the situation is. And for "balance" you've got the local village idiot sat there, talking over him about how they've owned a telescope since they were 5, and they've never seen what he's talking about. Then grinning proudly at their "contribution".

Just fuck off, Sharon.

What I do find peculiar, is the argument that goes along the lines of, “Well where I live, I don’t know anyone who earns £x, therefore you’re all making it up.”

I don’t know all sorts of demographics of people, yet I’m still 100% sure they exist

I think people live in their own bubbles a lot of the time. I’m guilty if this, to be sure. For instance, I genuinely never realised that anybody held strong views about women who are long-term SAH, until I came on MN. Round here (which is where I’ve lived since having DC) it’s the “norm” really and I don’t know anyone who uses daycare centres. So when you read some of the vitriol on here, it does jolt you and you realise you really are in a complete bubble.

But that’s why I like MN because there’s such a wide variance of people and that’s exactly how it should be.

People may make things up, but this could be said of any topic in here, surely? Maybe they claim they have a DH when they don’t; or they claim poverty just to get a reaction. Anything is possible really. From my perspective, there are more threads that seem to be a “race to the bottom,” than anything else. It’s far more “acceptable“ on MN to be anonymous and in poverty, than anonymous and wealthy, that’s for sure. Same with anything relating to DC, If I said my DS got all grade 9s at GCSE, the reaction would be that I was “stealth boasting”. You see all the time that when people are honest and say such things, they feel as if they have to quickly balance it out with, “oh but he has other difficulties /issues, etc - otherwise they’ll be jumped on. I think some people may exaggerate, but equally, other people may feel the need to hold back on the truth for fear of inciting resentment or it sounding insensitive.

TBF Cosima, the OP is questioning whether official statistics are correct based on the impression she gets from an online forum. What can you even say to that? I think the official stats are a better indicator. end thread

It's like when you see a debate on some form of news programme. Say, on Astronomy. One one side, you'll have Professor Brian Cox, explaining clearly what the situation is. And for "balance" you've got the local village idiot sat there, talking over him about how they've owned a telescope since they were 5, and they've never seen what he's talking about. Then grinning proudly at their "contribution".

It's because we live in a world where people have been hoodwinked into believing all opinions are equal. This was so evident during the Alfie Evans case.

You have a consultant paediatric neurologist with 40 years experience giving his opinion, and we then cut to the woman who works behind the counter in Greggs telling us what she thinks.

Yes, very interesting my love, now you've got a tray of buns out the back need icing, so fuck off and do your job, and let the grown ups talk.

Every can have an opinion, but not all opinions are equal. And unlike Michael Gove when he was education secretary, I actually put more store in the opinions of experts than random no-marks.

Yes, very interesting my love, now you've got a tray of buns out the back need icing, so fuck off and do your job, and let the grown ups talk.

Wow. That is astonishing.

Wow. That is astonishing.

But entirely valid. This constantly repeated chorus that everyone is entitled to their opinion is infuriating. Nobody is entitled to an opinion on something they know nothing about.

How is that possible when a salary thread comes up on mumsnet, practically everyone claims to have a 100k plus salary?

Can you post a link to these threads please? Because I've never seen this. All the threads I've seen have seen a spread with a dominance to low and middle

Here's one of the latest there are many, I just realised if I ask you to show what you're talking about then I should do the same.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3719680-To-ask-how-much-you-earn-and-what-you-do

So it would be great if you could post the threads you're seeing where everyone is claiming to be a high earner.

Mn description of lifestyle is a lot of fiction and aspiration with a splash of brag
On mn it’s regularly trotted out the man is top of his game ,6 figure earner.etc In fact so in demand that he needs a woman at home to keep the home,the kids and the frenetic activity schedule of sport,dance,drama,kumon and tutors on course
This top of his game man can’t shop,cook,open mail,chose appropriate attire without a stay at home wife

I agree Bluntness. You’ll see a range from high to low, with a couple of eyecatchingly enormous figures. Probably skewed a bit higher than the Uk average but with plenty of perfectly ordinary incomes from the middle of the bell curve and a bunch of people on very low part time incomes. But without fail you will also see people who just blank out the vast majority of posts, focus on the one or two claiming (rightly or wrongly) telephone number salaries and shout “You’re all deluded fantasists”.

Unless anyone can show me a link showing otherwise, ideally with the responses tallied up, broken down into deciles, and compared with ONS stats, I’m saying that the OP’s assertion about MN is flat out wrong.

Op is right there’s loads of threads on mn about how much folk earn
And the supposed grind of the dizzying array of activities and demands endured

How is that possible when a salary thread comes up on mumsnet, practically everyone claims to have a 100k plus salary

On the off chance that this is a genuine question and the OP was not being facetious, do you really not understand the difference in quality and reliability of data between a large scale survey, carefully designed to cover a representative sample of the population and a few hundred anecdotes from a self selecting group of people on a website that is known to be disproportionately used by higher income people? A badly designed survey produces rubbish data and the worst quality data is gained from asking an anonymous group of people with no attempts to ensure that group of people is representative or check the reliability of the answers they give.

I suggest that you familiarise yourself with the back catalogue of the statistics podcast, More or Less, where this sort of thing is covered regularly.

@TheyMostlyComeOutAtNightMostly you of course know no one has a spread sheet of current and historical posts for comparison and inspection. Or a baseline of the economics of mn vs the ONS metrics
So why ask?

Op is right

Then it should be easy to post some links, no? I can to prove what I'm saying, I've posted one. I can post many many more.

So let's see some of these threads where everyone is claiming to earn six figures. I've never seen one and I'm on here far too much.

Like the OP I’m being facetious. It’s my experience, like Bluntness’, that these threads actually have a decent spread of incomes, so I’m not going to accept the OP’s version of reality without really plausible evidence.

I asked for actual graphs and stats because I like graphs and stats - and it’s not a completely crazy desire on MN which has more than its fair share of mathematicians with time on their hands who like a challenge. I also occasionally ask for Rufus Sewell in a frock coat with a glass of Sauternes. I’m not going to get that either.

Tbh, I too have never seen threads where everyone is claiming to earn six figure salaries either? Where are these threads? Some people are higher earners sure, but why wouldn’t they be? The thread Bluntness posted was probably fairly typical, but that was a boring thread - just a list of jobs and salaries. I don’t think anyone was making anything up on there. What would be the point? I think those kind of threads are probably self-selecting in that it’s only people who perceive their job or salary to to be interesting that will bother replying. I mean, I did think the OP was being a bit disingenuous in that thread because she was claiming to be interested in a career change, so wanted to hear other people’s salaries Well, if you’re a lawyer in your 40s (as I think she was) you’re not realistically going to suddenly decide to retrain as an engineer or fashion designer are you - so what is the relevance of this list of random salaries? Far better to say, “I’m a lawyer thinking of retraining in x - experiences please and how much could I realistically expect to earn in this field?”

It’s all anecdote & opinion.ive seen fair few of the dh earns £huge threads
Also the woman posting they earned £huge and gave it up to eke out an existence with their corn fed children

Rufus Sewell in a frock coat with a glass of Sauternes. A fascinating proposition, not one I’d countenance but curious nonetheless

Lots of "Ive also seen these threads" but not one poster able to post one...

Ther are not many of those threads. There are threads about boarding schools and day schools where I suppose inevitably most women or their husbands earn a lot, but I don't think there are lots of threads where everyone is pretending to be richer than they are.

I do get surprised when people say no one they know earns less than x. I suppose they mean their friends and they just socialise with similar people. They cannot mean no one they know (not even the Amazon delivery driver).

As a feminist I am not that happy about women showing off about what their husbands earn - all they are really saying is they choose to provide sex, cleaning and childcare services in return for perpetuating a sexist norm and presenting to their children that women serve male needs and men earn.