Resentment at 100k

[Arseholeneighbours]

Theres a lot of vitriol spilt towards people being “high earners” at 100k and over. As net contributors, and most likely having made sacrifices, stresses and difficult life decisions, there’s many judgements about life choices , expectations and living within one’s means. What is the motivation to push forward in a career and to try and be as successful as one can if there’s no personal gain? It’s all well and good saying those with the broadest shoulders should take on the most - but to what end?

As you say, tapering.

There are a few bonkers pay / childcare costs combos around that either mean that you gain nothing, or actually lose out if you increase your income into that bracket but not out the other side.

Relatively high earners who work part time is another area. If you’re paying higher rate tax on part time, then increasing your hours is likely to increase the income tax the treasury gets, increases the spend going through childcare services, increases economic activity on work related stuff (commuting, lunches etc) but not actually leave you with any more money at the end of the month.
Which doesn’t seem to make a huge amount of sense as a policy.

In fairness, OP wouldn’t be any better off from the tapering I had in mind!

I’d start earlier, possibly around 70k, so by the time you got to 100k you had zero benefit anyway, it just wouldn’t have been as drastic a change and would have happened more gradually.

I actually think 100k is too high.

Low paying jobs come with a similar sacrifice too. Teachers? Nurses? It isn't just high earning people who have a lot of responsibility and have to work really long hours. But teachers and nurses don't get paid as much.

There isn't a taboo, but there are so many threads on here from people whingeing about the so-called taboo.

And I'm saying this as someone who earns over £100k.

Right and the single mum working a low paid job might also wish to further herself by going back to finish her degree for example but it would cripple her because she literally can't afford to reduce her hours to study. There's people from all walks of lifes who can't afford to further themselves to lift themselves out of being trapped in poverty yet you're hard done by because it won't finally reward you enough even though you're still well off and it would fulfill your personal goals. If you're only wanting it for a financial benefit and there isn't one then don't do it, but you keep saying it's not just about the money. Your perspective is so far removed, give your head a wobble 🫠

So you'd set it even lower than it is currently? That'll work wonders for productivity and women's careers. Great idea.

Women’s careers specifically? Why?

Fairly sure the men can reduce their working hours too if necessary, or make any other adjustments or sacrifices as necessary.

I completely reject this idea that childcare is a woman’s problem. It’s not 1955.

Fun fact. In terms of income differences, the top 20% of earners earn 12 times the earnings of the bottom 20%. When you take into account tax and benefits, that drops to 3 times. That’s a pretty stark difference when you start thinking about incentives to work hard.

Because statistically that is what happens. You can't address inequality by entrenching it. You can reject the idea all you like but we don't live in utopia where men pull their weight.

This is the type of logic I don't understand. 3 x more is still more. Why is 3 x more not an incentive to strive for career growth?

Well. I do.

There’s categorically no chance I’d be sacrificing my (higher paying) career while my husband kept his with no changes.

Zero. Nil.

Ok. But you're ignoring the plight of millions of other women.
And the productivity thing. That you've ignored.

Assuming that maths is right, which I don't think it is NMW is £1600 a month roughly.

3 x that is £4800, that's over £3000 a month more. There are people who are in situations that are so financially precarious they would literally sell their left kidney for an extra £300 a month, but we're supposed to feel sad for people at the top because they "only" get an extra £3000?

FYI, the take-home pay for a £100k salary is almost £6000 a month, so your math does not make sense.

If you only are motivated by making as much money as possible then you may feel more resentful of paying your rightful share.

But are you saying you're more useful to society than a nurse or a bus driver?

OP is top 5%.

UK top 5% is above circa 87k per year.

Top 5% Income UK - Find Out Where Your Pay Ranks In 2025 (walletsavvy.co.uk)

What does your calculation say for that group ?

20% seems a bit of an odd number for this thread.

My point is that if your sole reason for rejecting a promotion is that you would exceed £100k, that is ridiculous. You can avoid the consequences by diverting the excess to your pension or charity. Obviously if you don't fancy the promotion because of the extra work involved, then tax has nothing to do with it.

Teachers and nurses get whacking great pensions and can work anywhere.

A lot of high earners get clobbered with costs of being in the south east - expensive housing (2 bed flat for 500k on the outskirts of London versus a large 5 bed house in the Midlands or North). South east pays more stamp duty on buying houses and gets killed on train fares. I paid 56 for a return into London this morning for a 35 minute journey (35 effing minutes and standing room only), a season ticket for the same journey is 6k a year, a season ticket covering the whole of the West Midlands on train is 1k a year!!! That's 6k versus 1k for a train ticket. If you need tube plus train that 6k ticket is 8k - if you pay 40/45% tax that's 12-13k of salary!

Whilst south east on average earns more, everything is more expensive and so that 100k a year salary evaporates pretty quick! Genuinely think 100k in the south east is more like 65k elsewhere.

Why the hell aren’t child benefit and childcare hours universal benefits? Why not? It’s bonkers not to have them as universal benefits!

How many people earning over £100k use childcare hours? Not loads of people because only 1% earn that and most of them do so later in their careers than young childbearing years. So making it universal wouldn’t be a big cost. And how many of those that would benefit currently benefit anyway by dropping their hours / salary sacrificing into pension.

Make if universal, increase the countries income tax take massively, show high earners that they too can benefit from the pot they pay into. Don’t make it so hard for these people to live here that they move overseas.

Everyone who works full-time pays towards childcare, even those on the NMW have to pay something.

I think the biggest issue is how expensive London and the SE are. Businesses need to be incentivised to move/set up in the North to spread the load out and lower costs in London, aka the center of the universe and the only place in the UK that exists in terms of investment from central government.

It won't ever happen because the infrastructure is not there. The North needs a lot of investment in public transport, schools, hospitals, GP surgeries, etc, that it is never going to get, but it would solve a lot of issues if it did happen.

In England don't nurses and teachers start on £31k/£32k?

I honestly feel like it’s another way to get us to turn on each other rather than blame them and their rich friends! The problem is people aren’t allowed to complain that it’s hard as others will say ‘not as hard as me’. Where really we are all working for our money! I swear some of the people who are saying ‘oh boo-boo you earn 100k’ are also the ones defending the billionaires and saying they shouldn’t pay more tax!

I don't think anyone is annoyed when people on high incomes complain they are stressed with their workload but on threads like this there are always comments along the lines of "I earn this much because I worked hard so I deserve to have more than you my money," which probably feels like a massive kick in the teeth when you've just come home from your third 12-14 hour shift in a row in a care home and you're wondering whether that 50p you have left on your gas meter is enough to run a hot bath.

The insinuation is (or feels like) that if you're poor, you haven't worked hard enough, which is blatantly untrue. Many low-paid jobs are physically and emotionally hard. Many high-paid jobs are too, but hard work does not always equal high pay.

Think the main thing is skill.

I wouldn't say skill, necessarily, a good carer is very skilled, ditto nurses and teachers.

The value is in the demand and supply of the skill. Obviously, if you don't have access to/are not exposed to higher-earning people, you don't always know that those careers exist, let alone that they are accessible to you if you study hard enough, but multitasking, people skills and time management are things most people can work on, therefore more people have those skills which in terms of marketable value is not great for careers which rely on those skills.

Carers I accept. It's woeful due to the way the system is set up to be limited and reliant on government funding. But nurses and teachers don't get paid too badly.

All these jobs are linked to public sector and/or government pay. Maybe if we reformed and has a more public-private hybrid they'd get paid better? As they do in other parts of the world.

Exactly. I've suffered far worse stress and worked longer hours in lower paid jobs than higher paid ones, plus the added financial stress on top. I don't know where this idea comes from that lower paid jobs are easy - people trying to convince themselves they deserve high salaries more than others?