To think getting less than 50% of your pay is crazy?

[rampe]

If someone earns £15,000 a month. They have a student loan. They pay in 10% into their pension.
They take home less than £7,000 a month.

That's not a fair comparison though. If it costs someone £1.5k pcm to live (rent, food, transport etc) then it will cost them that whether they earn £2.3k or £15k gross pcm. Putting money into your pension is irrelevant (as many have pointed out here).

If you take into account ALL the taxes people pay (Income, NI, council tax, VAT, duties, etc) then the average amount of people's take home that goes on taxes is very consistent across the board. It's about 40% for the top fifth, and about 35% for the bottom fifth (lower for the intervening quintiles).

Student loans aren't counted in this, but then they're not technically a tax, even if they are best viewed as one.

🤣

Yes exactly this. I wouldn't begrudge the tax if it seemed to be making any kind of difference to the world around me.

Having more money than 99% of people in the country is unfair yes, just not on the side you think it is

yabu because including pension contributions and paying back student loans aren't things that should be taken into account anymore than council tax, housing costs, energy bills etc. Paying back a loan is paying back money you oer because it was a choice to take out a loan and go to uni (and then get a well paid career). Pension contributions is money the ccontributor will see again, with tax relief plus interest. Tell me how much they earn after tax and work out the loss if they are missing out on tax free childcare, free hours and child benefit for 1, 2, 3 children and yanbu. But do I think it's crazy that 40% of their money disappears to pay for a terrible health service they probably don't use and all the rest and also yanbu. there's little incentive to work when your salary gets to a certain point and the uk cannot afford to run down ambition and growth the way it is inclined to and has been for 30+ years. we are headed for economic ruin, and this is one of the many reasons why.

DH earns a fair bit more than this and recognises that he therefore has to pay a lot of tax. That's life- unless you want to hide out somewhere like Dubai. But do agree that countries with higher taxes - Scandinavia etc - do seem to do better on public services etc so would be good to see improvements here and a general better standard of life for all sections of society.

Plenty of countries tax more heavily.

It's not about "jealousy". This post is just tone deaf.

The post is an example that someone has worked out on the back of a fag packet

Yeah they do. However it’s the lower and middle earners who pay more. The higher earners are already paying some of the highest rates in the world. This is highly documented.

Is that you, Rishi, looking at your final payslip as Leader of His Majesty's Opposition? So sorry to hear of your misfortune! Time for the 99% of us who earn less than that to give generously:
www.gofundme.com/f/rishi-sunaks-sky-tv-package/donate?source=btn_donate

To answer to your thread title I'm 100% with you.

Why is it depressing to earn £7000 a month? That’s an amazing amount of money. I’m not sure how I would spend it!

I agree OP. And where other posters are saying boo hoo etc, if they were paying 50% there wage am sure they would have a lot to say.

if someone earns a lot good on them for being succesful!!

Less than 4% of government spending goes on maintaining law and order.

More than two thirds is spent on a variety of welfare state measures (that higher/additional tax payers won’t use).

A further significant chunk goes on health and education, again that the higher earners won’t generally use.

you can see why people are a bit peeved, no?

Yes, but all medical care after the initial ambulance would be privately funded.

There’s a huge difference in cost to the taxpayer.

Are there private a and e departments that actually deal with full on emergencies?

So if we all did that who would pay for our public services ?

I would happily swap and receive £7k p/m.

I paid off my student loan in full before I had months of pay like that. It was public money and though yes, I could've sat on it and put my money elsewhere, it didn't sit right with me to not just pay it off when the government needed money for the country. I didn't moan about it. Taxes wise yes it grates to have so much taken off every month (and I'm not on that same take home) - but likewise I'm privileged. I want society to be better. I have extra so it's OK within reason to pay higher sums to make that happen where others work hard too but don't have the same level spare

No, I think someone earning that amount is paying back what they were lent in order to have the education that enabled them to earn that amount. Seems fair to me. If they are really feeling the squeeze -and who isn’t with only £7000 to play about with every month - they could cut the pension contributions back a bit for a couple of years.

Nope. And some private hospitals literally call an ambulence and transfer you to NHS if things go wrong in surgery and you need icu.

Where’s the OP gone? Maybe the 7k doesn’t stretch to keeping up the with the electricity bill. Poor soul, used her last credits to charge up her frother gadget.

Yeah the populations of Finland, Denmark and Sweden are famously unhappy.

Not really?

They are getting more than £7K/month anyway.

Assuming that their employer is matching the 10% pension - that is £3K into pension savings a month.

Then approx £1150 to pay off their student debt (that at that rate will be cleared fairly quickly).

So they are getting £11,150/month (assuming your £7K is correct and so I my assumptions) - it is just that £3K of that is going into long term savings and over £1K is going to paying off a debt. Not too bad really. Assuming salary £180k/yr gross and total renumeration £198K/yr.

People generally think it's fine as long as they're earning less and therefore pay less. They display spiteful behaviour and that's why the comments like 'tiny violin' etc get said.

I knew someone whose earnings increased significantly and their attitude soon changed.

Same with things like buying council houses. My parents were very against it until they inherited money and the opportunity to purchase their council property came along. Then they sold it at a big profit.