'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

Under 2 million is really not a lot, particularly for someone who was famous. Celebrities are perceived as uber wealthy.

No, I wouldn't be unhappy to have 2 million, but it really wouldn't go far. Certainly not "never work again" money unless you are older.

I think it seems a fairly small sum for someone who was an international superstar for decades. 1.4 million after debts, etc. It’s barely enough to buy a house in the area of London she lived in.

I suspect the tone is more about how the Mail think they can play the story to their various audiences - beloved star who bravely struggled and died too young in the UK and star who wasted her last years or something in the US.

Wow!

My USA dad regards my UK wage as "peanuts" (it's well above UK median).
My (American) early-20s cousins who fit nails & eyelashes or trained to be welder earn maybe 25% more than me on paper, too. They seem to have enormous expenses for rent, insurance, groceries, utilities, etc, though.

Just in response to your general question OP - I always thought professional salaries were much bigger in the US to account for the huge student debt required to qualify for them.

I had a colleague from the US working in Ireland a few years ago, and she was raging at what she perceived to be our low salaries - it was a tech company - but it turned out she was still paying off her student loan back home, which was like a mortgage payment.

Also, what others have said about healthcare costs which people in the UK don't have to worry about.

Given their shoddy employment laws, I would still rather work here than there tbh.

It seemed low to me when you consider the value of many people's houses if they bought before the 2000s and subtract that from it given how famous she was. It said she had debts.

It's like winning the lottery though 1 million was a huge amount when it first started, now it'll just about get yu a nice home and car and some left over for upkeep and maintenance.

Americans need to earn more to live so it will seem fairly low.

I think it’s an interesting comparison, regardless of the DM’s questionable headlines!

Sineads house is only for sale now so presumably that figure is pre the proceeds of that sale. €1.3 million. Lovely house, needs work but I would think would sell for more as desirable location.

What does £1.4m get you these days? A fairly nice house in London and not much more. It's probably 10 times what I'm worth, but not megabucks.

But then EVERYTHING in the USA is bigger than the UK. EVERYTHING !!!!

The beneficiaries of her will would have had absolutely nothing had she lived in the US.

She'd probably have been bankrupt beforehand from paying for her son's medical treatment, never mind her own.

It's really interesting they have gone with such different headlines for the two audiences.

That purchasing power thing is interesting too.

I'd always thought as we had lower student loans and an nhs our pay coukd be lower and still have a similar standard of living but maybe not.

Not going to click sorry, is there an inheritance tax angle? As that's what they are banging on about this month.

My colleague who trained in the US started her working life at ?23 with $250,000 in student debt, and it has to be paid off ASAP over there like any other loan. There are public service jobs with some loan forgiveness etc. Essentially she worked 14 hours a day in two jobs day and night for several years. It's true that the wages did allow her to pay it off. By the time her husband got a job over here and she moved over, she was burned out and hated her profession, at not even 30. She said to me once that working here had made her happy to go to work again.

I'm not saying it's all fine over here, but different countries are different.

I doubt very much that 90% of Americans regard $2M as 'pitiful', it's still a huge amount of money.

Likewise if you're daft enough to spend that amount of money on a modest home in London and then complain you don't have any money.

You could spend a small fraction of that amount on a similar home elsewhere in the country and invest the rest to provide an income to provide a decent lifestyle.

It could just be to do with general attitudes to wealth in the respective countries. In general terms, USA loves capitalism, the American dream, wealth is something to be aspired to and celebrated; UK attitudes are anti-capitalism, wealth is envied, should be massively taxed etc.

Think of treatment of Sunak v Trump.

So £1.4m being something to sympathise with as a lowly sum for someone famous by US citizens is described as a huge amount to UK citizens, to appeal to the (general) audience attitude.