Is this classed as a ‘high earner’?

[Earnerlesr]

65k.

And if it’s not, what figure starts to be classed as a high earner?

Yes…when I had to give up work to care for my dying father I was laughing all the way to bank with my £300 a month Carers Allowance.

Don’t be such a twat.

No, I would class 65k as a fairly good wage but in my head a high earner is definitely 100k plus.
I completely recognise that there are thousands of people who earn less but 65k just feels a bit middle of the road .

Just like it’s not fair for the taxpayer to subsidize anyone who chooses to live in an expensive area. And no, we don’t need low paid workers in expensive areas. That argument is a false dichotomy. If you don’t subsidize people their wages would even out at the required level, always higher than they are now.

Looking at statistics, 65k is (if I have interpreted correctly) in top 10% of earners, over 100k is probably top 5% so in first instance you earn more than 90% of people, 100k you earn more than 95% of people. I'd say comparatively that is a high earner. Whether it covers all your expenses or feels like a lot is an entirely different matter!

If you have eg 2 children in nursery and live in an expensive area (London or other expensive city or town) then it really won't feel like you're "rich" or well off ....but that still doesn't negate the fact you're in the top 10%

Another thread on here a few months ago had posters that were incredulous that anyone in London earn less than 30k! Like suddenly because you work in London, cleaners, bar staff, retail staff, teachers etc are suddenly going to earn 80k....MN definitely feels like a parallel universe sometimes! (I've never earned more than 30k and I've worked in London on and off, pt and ft for 25 years)

I thought that as well!

It's higher than the average salary, some people might feel that it's 'low' depending on their outgoings or aspirations.

No, people who are earning in the top 10٪ are being classed as high earners. Because, statistically, in comparison to the rest of the population, they are.

It doesn't matter what you think. The stats speak for themselves.

It often worries me when lower earners simply don't believe that there are plenty of people on more.

It drives inequality. If you think its unimaginable to earn over 40k, you won't be making decisions taking that into account - like refusing a poorly paid role, negotiating on a pay offer or seeking out training to progress to better pay.

Honestly, no lie, there are many, many, many people in the UK earning more than 60k. Average pay stats are dragged down by young people working in first jobs earning well below adult minimum wage. If you want to earn more there are jobs out there paying more.

But couldn't you make that argument with anyone unless they lived in the actual cheapest part of the UK?

I understand income curves, but surely where you live is relevant to how well off you actually are in reality. London is expensive it is true, so people need to earn more to achieve the same quality of life. But they're always told they can move somewhere cheaper - no one suggests someone struggling in Birmingham should move to Hull or they have no reason to complain.

I think as a country we are too used to low wages, and fighting amongst ourselves is a distraction. Anyone two people on a salary even if its £20k and £250k have far more in common than the global elite!

Another thread on here a few months ago had posters that were incredulous that anyone in London earn less than 30k! Like suddenly because you work in London, cleaners, bar staff, retail staff, teachers etc are suddenly going to earn 80k....

London has a real, and growing issue with filling these types of roles, because they don't pay enough to either live near or travel to work. The availability of social housing often drives people's ability to afford to work in lower paid roles, not to mention many cleaners, bar staff are young people still living with parents.

I live in the south east and the going rate for cleaners is £15-16 an hour. Not in london. Working a 37.5h week at £15 an hour with 4 weeks holiday earns £27k p.a. and these are the lowest paid, least skilled workers.

Average of a crap number is also crap. I don’t think you understand that millions are not really ‘earning’ if they are subsidized by benefits. There is a low pay culture in this country dragging down even those that you consider to be at the top.

Exactly, no one on PAYE is really a high earner. High earners don’t tend to ‘work’ and earn in the traditional sense.

Well school age children would see the benefit.

I think it's high - i can only dream of a salary like that. In my area (South west) that would definitely be classed as a high earner.

Loads I imagine. My DH earns 100k+in Scotland and others his company earn around the same. There are plenty of companies not based in London which will pay salaries like that.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I always considered it to be 120k +. It would be interesting to know if that 160k is just base pay or includes bonuses. Obviously this is mainly referring to people paid through PAYE and not business owners.

What the fuck has benefits got to do with the question of whether or not £65k is a high earner or not? Why do some people feel the need to bring this into everything? And why the patronising assumption that I don't understand?

Yes, a lot of people on low wages are subsidised by the benefits system. Yes, it would be better if employers paid a decent living wage to all of their staff. No disagreement there, but until employers step up, what do you want people to do? I would love to see companies cutting the salaries of top management and reducing dividends to shareholders in order to ensure that they can pay a decent wage to people at the bottom of the scale, but that doesn't seem likely to happen at the moment, does it‽

Saying that an average of a crap number is also crap is just meaningless. The facts are what they are. You might not like it, but £65k is within the top 10% of earners in the UĶ. You can argue that average wages should be higher, but that doesn't change the current reality.

An MP earns £86000

So many here would not classify the people who apparently run the country as high earners....

We have a household income of around £65k and its comfortable. Not fancy, but there's holidays, meals out, kids activities, a house in a good school catchment...

Not at all. I earn more than that and I'm still having to budget carefully

A family member is a high earner. Basic and bonus combined around £400000 before tax.

He probably loses about 40% in tax ( rightly so) leaving a good old chunk for him.

Even in London very few people earn 300k

I found something saying that to be in the top 1% in london you have to be earning 700k which sounds about right to me

https://www.accountancydaily.co/richest-taxpayers-are-male-and-live-london

salaries are a bit crap though as they have stagnated so much

65k now is equivalent to about 32k in the early 00s which is ridiculous when you look at tax bands

"To be counted in the top 1% of earners, UK-wide taxpayers had to take home in excess of £150,000 and there were only 310,000 of those people across the country as a whole in 2014-15, the period analysed by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) report."

I live in London. I'd say high earner is £80k+. I'm on just over half that and feel I earn a pretty good wage. Your perspective of what makes a 'high earner' is definitely skewed by what you earn yourself.