Getting vilified as a high earner

[MagicMondays]

DH and I are both high earners. We do highly skilled and quite niche professional jobs which involved most of our 20s spent grafting, living apart, anti social hours etc when our friends were all having more fun! Both jobs still demand long hours and have a lot of responsibility. We have two DC and it's a struggle to sort childcare that works and make sure one of us is around for them. Our mortgage is huge (cos London) on a run of the mill Victorian terrace.
We obviously get no allowances - no personal allowances on income tax, no 30 hours childcare, no child benefit etc. Our tax bill is huge.
No issue with any of that. High earners should pay a disproportionate amount into the system to support others/redistribute wealth etc.

What I can't get my head around is how much people in the UK seem to dislike people like me. I see it on these boards all the time. People demanding I pay more tax, people complaining high earners are not as deserving as nurses, teachers etc, my own family making unfavourable comparisons with others.
We don't live a flash lifestyle at all - ordinary clothes, old car, not really interested in grand holidays, posh restaurants etc. You wouldn't know other than from knowing the jobs we do that we must have a good income.

I'm just a bit tired of this idea that people like me are arseholes in some way. I'm really not!

@Particularprick OP is talking about both her and her DH each having a salary of over £125k after pension payments. So a much higher salary than that.

YABU. What do you actually want here?

@JazbayGrapes To have a pity party.

Not OP specifically. But I do think there is trend of loathing those who have huge wealth. We always hear about the UK billionaires, and wealth disparity, and that is true. However, when you look at these billionaires, they are mostly immigrants, mostly from pretty standard backgrounds, some from very poor backgrounds. And they have chosen to make their billions here. Does it benefit this country, yes, could they move elsewhere, of course. Like or loathe them, they do contribute to society.

@KnittedCardi You do not make billions in a lifetime unless you are hugely talented e.g. invented something amazing. amazing singer and songwriter, actor, etc
Or
You act illegally and/or exploit many people to get to where you are. You do not achieve this in a lifetime through hard work alone.

The vast majority of billionaires have exploited and made their wealth through the work of others

They deserve to be vilified

And the last two posters illustrate the point very well. Why do you assume exploitation? Some of these people give work to millions around the world. Would you rather they had no job, no income? You yourself may very well benefit from those people through your pensions. What's the alternative solution? Where do you draw the line at wealth and power. We can't all be independent shop owners, or state employees.

@KnittedCardi

I draw the line at slave labour and huge wealth inequality that results in very few controlling the vast majority of resources.

Im not grateful to a few individuals who are responsible for most of the world's problems

Look at the language you've used here for a minute, 'give' jobs to - there's a belief that people employed on low salaries are somehow being done a favour by being 'given' a job rather than a work that needs doing in exchange for money transaction, like it's a charitable act of kindness and the person 'giving' the job is gaining no benefit at from it.
Only they are, they're getting the work they need done that they either can't do (through volume) or don't want to do, done in order to create money, they then decide how to distribute that and because of the attitude mentioned above, it's more likely that they will take the larger cut, and using it to either bolster their own wealth or to expand with the intention of bolstering their own wealth, and the people creating the money by doing the job, a smaller cut.
The alternative is to distribute fairly, and to value the people doing that work, rather than treat them like a necessary evil, and pay and respect them as such, and then tell them it's their own fault - while relying on them to bring the money in or get essential jobs done so that society can function and money be made at all.
That attitude has prevailed and now everyone is chasing the dream and there's less and less people willing or able (because you don't get paid enough to live on) to do these jobs and that's having a knock on effect.

It's that attitude that people resent, the fact that this is a mutually beneficial arrangement, or supposed to be, but if you're bottom of the pile you're simultaneously relied upon and resented.

Those at the bottom of the pile need to be recognised as being as important and worthy as those at the top, because no one makes their money in isolation.

I agree about the give jobs to attitude as almost a favour.
And look at the outcry now plenty of people have decided not to work or to work part time. Suddenly they are all lazy refusing to contribute to the economy by not working a job.

The attitude is that the rich are being charitable by creating jobs and ordinary people are lazy if they do not do those jobs.

Yes, instead of looking at their own hand in creating a situation where people don't want to do the low paid jobs, it's hand wringing and pearl clutching about lazy people and how they don't want to contribute.

Maybe taking a look at the culture of expecting people to be grateful for the 'opportunity' to be paid a pittance and treated badly, to increase the wealth of someone else, and changing that, might be a step in the right direction.

Oops, my bad.
His profits will push him into the top 1%.

Anything else to add?
Care to explain why you left such an incomplete comment?

I think it's more 0.01% really isn't it that op refers to - incomes over £500k that sort of thing?

People who make snide comments about my earnings have no idea how many unpaid evenings I have spent over the years learning and taking exams (and paying for them myself) into my late 30s.

You're not really "allowed" to put them straight as it is seen as punching down. I just smile and agree that I am lucky. It's a kindness that we have to do for jealous people.

OP can you set up a gourmet page each month, to help with your income tax?

*gofundme not gourmet

Oh well, at least you had the money to pay for your exams, despite all those awful unpaid evenings. 🤣 Some people do extra learning and take exams for pleasure, so it doesn’t seem a huge sacrifice to me, in all honesty, being someone who doesn’t particularly object to exam taking.

Thank you for your masterclass in failing to comprehend a simple post.

Not failing to comprehend, just laughing at you.