'Huge' money in the UK is considered 'pitiful' in the US?

[Bunbry]

Just checking the news - foolishly in the Daily Mail - but was surprised to see the difference between UK and US versions of a story:

UK: Sinead O'Connor leaves huge sum of money to her children in her will - as she urges them to 'milk her music for what it's worth' in final wishes

US: Sinead O'Connor's cause of death is revealed as she leaves pitiful sum to her children

So, that's my question - what Sinead earned, spent and saved were her concerns alone, I'm just wondering if, together with one of the lowest state pensions in Europe, some of the highest marginal rates of tax and poor public services, our media is gaslighting us on wages and wealth.

YABU: High earners in the UK are rewarded similarly to those in other countries

YANBU: Stagnant wages and standards of living have fallen well behind our neighbours and allies

It’s all relative to the country you live in though. My wages would be pitiful if I had to live in the states, but I don’t, and my outgoings aren’t as high as they would be there. DS earns very little but manages to live in one of the most expensive cities in Europe. Wages only need to keep pace with where the wages are being paid.

I don't give a monkeys fart how the uk compares to the us.

In just about every quality of life index the US are at the bottom of the table.

I live in the US and would say a relatively young and kind of unexpected death leaving over 2 million dollars is pretty amazing.

YABU, the Mail doesn’t say it’s a huge sum.
It says her estate was ‘reduced to’ 1.4m.
There is no shortage of high earners in the UK.

As a Brit living in the USA you need a much bigger salary to cover healthcare, utilities and food.
Many states are fire at will.
There is also a significant difference between rich and poorer people here.
You are trying to compare apples and pears.

Afaik the US has far worse inequality. I think it's to do with wanting to put the UK down so that people in the US feel lucky by comparison

They used 'pitiful' in the US headline and called it a 'huge sum' in a UK one. I now see that they've amended the UK version.

My post has become rather academic, the Mail have now amended the UK headline. It was just jarring to see how they addressed the amount - a lot more than I have - in the two countries.

Both of the links in the OP go to the same page. But in any case, I'm not going to decide what is a large or small amount of money based on the imagination of a tabloid subeditor who is evaluated entirely on how many people they can get to scroll down to the first advert.

We're now so accustomed to hearing celebrities raking in tens of millions of dollars annually that 1.7 million pounds sounds less than one might expect for a singer of her calibre. Ordinary Americans wouldn't sniff at such an amount it's still a sizeable inheritance it's just in the context of the celebrity world it sounds low. That's my take on it.

£1.4 million for Sinead O’Connor would be viewed as a paltry amount in the U.S. She had a 35 year career.

I don't think most people in the US would refer to that amount as "pitiful". Typical mean-spirited tabloid click bait.

Wages tend to be higher overall in the US but the COL is generally higher as well. I suspect it more or less evens out dependent upon what area of the country you live in.

This is a Daily Mail issue.

I live in the US. For the vast majority of people a 1.4 million dollar (or pound) estate would be considered a huge inheritance.

A 1.4 million estate does seem to be low for an internationally known artist. There are people living near me who owned plumbing businesses who will leave more. But it is not really surprising considering how precarious the musical/artistic world is.

This! She was around a long time. I have a normal Job in the south east. My estate is probably about 800k. (House price rises and what not, I'm not cash rich"

So sineads estate seems small for someone who was so famous

So sineads estate seems small for someone who was so famous

Famous, but not necessarily a high earner for many decades now. Was she playing large venues? Recording music that sold well commercially? Writing songs that were recorded by other artists and receiving royalties?

I don't think the amount is paltry, but I agree with this. I would have thought her estate was worth more.

£2 million dollars for a woman who had ongoing mental health problems and struggled to work, is not a pitiful amount

I get your point @Bunbry but you could say the same for the North and South of England.
If you had the wages of a Northerner there is no way you afford to live in London/ Cornwall/ Portsmouth.
Equally if you had southern wages you could live better than most in Hull or Newcastle

If you take any notice of what the Daily Fail has to say about ANYTHING you need to get a grip of yourself.

That was my feeling, but (at the time I posted) the headlines on different sides of the Atlantic were contradictory.

Sinead was incredibly talented and appeared to be a genuine and kind woman. She also had significant mental health problems and once tried to take her own life.
Her significant mental health problems made it difficult for her to work and to exploit her talent.
Trying to claim that Sinead leaving £2 million estate is a symptom of the UK not appreciating talent and people making money is a massive twisting of the truth, and one that I think Sinead herself would have condemned. She had zero time for manipulation and was a truth teller.

Its much less than I would expect, from someone so high profile. I wonder what happened? Poor money management? Or did she just not earn that much (which I find hard to believe)?

@mjf981 Obviously I do not know. But Sinead had bipolar. Impulsive spending is a common issue during manic episodes with people often spending enormous amounts of money in a very short space of time.

Its very complicated and you can cut the data many different ways but the one I like the best is Purchasing Power Parity for median income. So that is the actual money they have to spend after taxes of the people in the middle income brackets and excludes the billionaires and non earners which can skew the data

In 2021 the median equivalised disposable income in the US was 80% higher than in the UK. US was 48,624 and UK was 26,884

source 2021 purchasing power parity in USD equivalents, source is wikipedia median income using data from the OECD

Yes there's a big difference, but here it's just because she was so famous you might expect more. It's just for click bait, which worked on you!