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?

Really hard. I’ve resorted to cash back websites on anything I spend now, even if I get back a measly £4. I’ve had to cut back a lot and live quite a basic lifestyle.

I'm totally not driven by money. I really enjoy my job (uni lecturer) even though it's way off £100k.

However, I do want a work life balance. I earn just over the 40% threshold, and if I got to the point where I was well over it I would consider cutting my hours by a day a week.

Therein lies the conundrum with taxing high earners too much. If I had to pay more than 50% of what I earned to the government, I'd cut my hours until I went below that that threshold, and they would get 50% of £0.

Your glass is half full. You should stop thinking it's half empty. Majority of people's glasses have only a wee dribble.

Many, many people have been equally willing and it doesn't work out.

It's impossible to argue about luck really because the way different people see things like luck is wrapped up in emotions and core beliefs.

But tax is progressive. If you go up a band, you only pay the higher rate on earnings above that. Your take home does still go up.

Why do so many high earners appear to not understand progressive taxation ?

Absolutely it does, but perhaps not in quite the way you mean. My family are what is termed "working poor" but my mother always saw education as a privilege and encouraged us to strive. Hence good results throughout my education, top university, good degree. I am on my second career and needed solid qualifications for both. Here's where the luck comes in - some children, no matter how hard they try or how invested their family is, just won't get there. Some are just not academic. Some run into other life circumstances that scupper their efforts. I have been privileged to have had two separate careers, both of which I love, which pay very handsomely. Not every clever kid gets there. The problem is there will always be a core of high earners who insist that luck played no part and who tell others less privileged than them that they just lacked ambition, or didn't try hard enough. It's incredibly cruel.

Yes I’m aware of progressive tax. That however doesn’t cover the loss of benefits or tax credits

I think it's just that lower earner cannot understand how someone on 100k could mismanage their money enough to be struggling.
I'm on minimum wage and my DH is on 50k. We have 3 young kids. We are not struggling. We are not in receipt of any benefits apart from the standard child benefit. We definitely aren't wealthy however we have a good life.
It does absolutely boggle my mind when I see people who earn 6 figure salaries complaining about how hard they have it..
I just don't really understand what they mean by that.. especially if its a couple and both are earning over 50k.
I just think you've really overstretched yourself if you are sat there complaining. Either that or you don't live in reality whatsoever and to you struggling means not being able to afford a cleaner twice a week any more or having to get some of your food shop from Lidl.
I just find it very odd.
And then to expect sympathy from people who've genuinely struggled??
No.
I only own my own home due to an inheritance that helped me build a deposit. And I understand how phenomenally lucky I am to have that. I'm lucky to have had a good education. I'm lucky to have a job. I'm lucky to be able bodied etc etc
There's so many things in our life that are due to luck that unfortunately some other people do not have.
I find it so ridiculous when people are out here complaining about how hard they worked and how they deserve all the money and shouldn't pay whatever tax it is they are asked to pay..
You think people working 12 hr shifts for minimum wage in factories don't work hard?
You think A&E nurses on 40k don't work hard?
And so on and so on..
Many people are working very hard.
If you are lucky enough to earn over 100k then a lot of that will be down to luck not just hard work. I'm sorry but there are very very few people out there who started at rock bottom with nothing and ended up earning a six figure salary.
Most people will have had luck play into it just like I'm a homeowner partially due to luck. Not that I didn't work hard as I work 12hr shifts in healthcare. But let's be honest I've been helped by generational wealth.
My DH was born to a teenage mother on a council estate where she still lives now. Never worked in her life. He was the first from his family to go to uni and has worked so hard to get to where he is..
But if you ask him as well he will tell you about how luck played into that. He went to uni under a labour government grant. Worked as a nurse with a bursary. Legs up. Paid for by tax!!
I personally think we all need to look at what we have achieved in life realistically. You can be all woe is me about it. Or you can think about how perhaps you have such a high standard of living now you've lost sight of what thousands of people are going through in this country and what millions are going through world wide.
You'll be sat there thinking it's normal to have two cars and go on foreign holidays twice a year and have kids in schools that cost more than some people's yearly wages. These things aren't normal. You are living a life of luxury compared to most people on the planet.
Even I know that I am living a life of luxury compared to most people on the planet and I earn minimum wage!!

surely that comes down to how you define luck? You’re suggesting it’s academic ability with support. Others might look at it as being right place right time. There’s obviously an element of luck to any success in one sense….its not in anyway putting others down

You don't have to pay more than 50% of what you earn to the government on £100k. That's an absolute crock. Take home pay on £100000 is just shy of £69000. I have taken off pension contributions because that's a personal benefit (although a lot of high earners will pay pension contributions + salary sacrifice and expect us to weep for them). £69000 out of £100000 means you are paying combined tax and NI of 31%.

You want benefits paid to higher earners? Who would pay the tax for those?

Or you want low income families not to have benefits? How would society handle the resultant increased poverty?

Or perhaps you just want there to be a mythical perfect system where every person feels perfectly satisfied with their lot and there is never any noticeable tax threshold? Show me such a nation!

Yup. Agree.

And some folk come across ambitious greasy pole climbers who stop at nothing, including destroying the careers of others if it benefits them.

Re your post. I have known and worked with many high earners who are great folk. They happily say " yup, been really lucky". Most Phd's I have worked with fall into this camp. I suppose it's because they know they have been lucky to have spent so many years in education.

But the "I pulled my bootstraps up brigade ? Meh. Watch out for them.

Hey, no chips on my shoulders.

But I need to go lie down for a bit now, maybe hum something relaxing :-)

We have a combined income of 80k gross, quite frankly we don't need any benefit assistance and I don't begrudge others receiving UC etc. I grew up with a single mum, and if it wasn't for the welfare state I probably would not be earning what I am now.

this thread wasn’t started to say woe is me, I can’t afford anything. It was about incentives to keep aspiring. Ok if you’re fine with your lot, you’re coming from a very privileged position of having a secure home. Maybe I have lost sight of what life would be like on a minimum wage but that was the point of this thread - the nastiness that comes out from earning a higher salary

yes I think rather than an absolute cut of 100k for childcare a sliding scale would be more appropriate. If

I think we all know nasty characters no matter where we work.i guess we will have to agree to disagree.

I think you have lost sight of how much worse others have it, yes.

The 'nastiness' as you call it is people responding to your glass half empty perspective. You write as though you are at the bottom of the heap.

If you don't feel incentivised to keep earning so much money, that option is available to you.

You know what "if" means, right?

I’m sorry if it’s come across that way, it was not my intention. Obviously I don’t see myself as bottom of the heap and do actually appreciate my “situation “ . I suppose im just questioning my current quandary of work life balance having spent 20 years persuing a career and where to draw the line

You can campaign for that if you want.

But you have to ask for something logical if you want to be taken seriously.

The nations with free or heavily subsidised childcare for higher earners also have higher tax rates for higher earners.

I believe it creates a barrier to women in the workplace

If the 90 hours/zero time with family comment was true (I wasn't sure!) then there's a lot to think about.

What the rinse the rich brigade still consistently fail to realise, and I wouldn’t call £100k in London ‘rich’ but they certainly do - that we are literally haemorrhaging talent in the city. Record numbers of net contributors ARE leaving.

If they continue with their hate and resentment then their benefits, hospitals and public services really will be coming to an end. There simply won’t be enough people willing to continue to sacrifice so much to prop this all up.

We live in a country run by consent.
it is really worth pausing to remember that.

I think the far left rinse the rich haters really need to stop. They are the ones strangling the positivity, the productivity and even basic patriotism.

This is the crux of it really.. why should we incentivise people to earn more money than they actually need? To earn more just for the sake of it?
Why is that the duty of society and not to make sure kids aren't living in poverty for example?
If those two things can't both be tackled simultaneously, it seems obvious which one should be prioritised

Surely it's not the responsibility of the collective to motivate people to earn more money?
To work in general, sure. To be useful to society. To learn.
But to earn more money?
I think that's a personal thing. If someone wants to centre the pursuit of higher abd higher earning in their life then fine whatever. But I'm not sure that's something the government needs to be incentivising.. because why?

Why do you equate success with high salaries? I work really hard as a teacher for a salary that is exactly half of £100000. Why am I not considered successful?