To be confused by 'high earners' complaining about taxes?

[tutuland]

So high earners pay lots of tax. The top 20% pay for 70% or whatever the numbers are.

But (beyond printing more money) isn't the money there high income people make just coming from the paying public? No matter who you work for, your company's profit is just an accumulation of normal people paying for things.

So ultimately, isn't it all our money anyway? Just beacuse the game is rigged and you get paid 400K for management whatever, it doesn't mean you're more deserving of that money than anyone.

Benefits are free to the recipient, so doing something to receive then would be fair. Somewhere, someone in the chain has earned the taxes that pay for the benefits.

but on the flip side if theres a job that needs doing then they should be paid a proper wage to do the job, unless of course theres no profit to be made but the role needs doing so then its slavery

None of those jobs are struggling for applicants.
If someone makes money from influencing, then what is wrong with that? Money earned is a good thing, surely?

If a job needs doing, then employ someone properly. None of this "for their benefits" bullshit.
I asked upthread what happens to the people who used to do these jobs, if they are to be replaced by cheap/free labour, and no one answered.

Most of the people I see working in McDonald's are young though. If young people really all thought they were better than that presumably it would be filled with older people?

There is a question about how those jobs are paid- either they are paid below the amount required to support life in which case the government has to step in with in work benefits/housing benefits (which comes from tax.) Or the jobs are paid more (the government raises minimum wage) in which case businesses either have to raise prices or accept less profits (and since the hospitality sector is often on quite narrow margins at the best of times that is an issue). The government raised NMW by a bit and that caused a huge furore. To raise it by the amount needed to make housing benefit etc a thing of the past would have a massive effect on businesses. So if people don't want that, they need to accept some people in work will get benefits
Or we just return to the Victorian workhouse approach.

Maybe the roles are paid at the value they should be and the problem is that sitting around doing nothing but watching Netflix having anxiety is not paid at the value it should be i.e. zero.
If working a 35 hour a week job nets people £110 week more than just working 12 hours and having an unprovable mental health condition then guess what we’re going to see happen?

then thats the fault of business wanting cheap labour

bottom line modern business models are not suited for modern times

Do you consider NMW to be a cheap, slave labor wage? If so, how high would it need to go to make it acceptable?

The trade-off for higher minimum wages is lower employment. Society can decide that it's worth it, but there is a negative impact. Those who get the higher minimum wage do better; those who lose their jobs do not.

alljobs should pay the living wage or higher, and if they cannot then there business models cannot survive without cheap labour and yes even at nmw most jobs should be paid higher

So you’ve got an issue with mass unskilled immigration keeping wages low now? Well if you want that to end then the tax burden has to come down to give businesses more headroom and people need to stop being paid to do nothing because they feel ‘anxious’ about doing low skilled jobs.

Maybe shut all the businesses and have commerce centrally controlled eh comrade? Our publicly ran businesses are the height of efficiency after all.

well based on businesses now, they are doing a grand job, wanting cheap labour etc and yes a centrally planned economy would be better in one sense but then it would prove like covid you only need so many workers for the system to run

What is the NMW currently (I’m an American and honestly have no idea) and what would a living wage be per hour?

And what would you do about the surge in unemployment that would result from a dramatic increase in the minimum wage?

You didn't answer the question, and inserted yet another jab at people with mental illnesses. Do better.

Brilliant, why didn’t you just come out with this at the beginning and save me wasting my time discussing this with you? So rude.

What’s the question? And what are all my jabs at mental illness?

As of early 2026, the UK's mandatory minimum wage system (known as the National Living Wage for adults) is £12.21 per hour for those aged 21 and over, set to rise to £12.71 on April 1, 2026.

The "real living wage" (an independent, voluntary rate) is higher, at £13.45 per hour across the UK and £14.80 per hour in London (as of October 2025/May 2026).

as for the unemployment then it proves the modern version of capitalism / whatever you want to call it., is not suited for modern society

The difference between the two wage rates is much smaller than I expected. An increase to the slightly higher living wage wouldn’t have a large effect on employment.

Unemployment exists in all economic systems. There will always be people who retire, are between jobs, in training, etc. it’s not a defining feature of modern capitalism.

but this is the puzzlement Unemployment exists yes, but why then do people or some people think companies should be able to pay slave wages, just to make profts ? surley thats why we got rid of slavery.

and people moan about people on benefits, but then we need to alter the system because if businesses cannot make profits because of eg costs of staff etc then how is that the publics fault

And in feudal times those people were supported by the church (paid for through tithes etc). From early modern times onwards those people were supported by the local parish through the raising of parish rates (taxes). In Victorian times huge economic change broke the old system and it was replaced by slums, workhouses, prostitution and "providential calamaties" (This still cost the rich something but ideally they paid as little as possible.) After WW2 we had the welfare state paid for by taxes and here we are.

Before Feudal times I guess the old and infirm were encouraged to jump of cliffs. So unless we go back to that I think we have to accept that taxes and benefits will be a thing one way or the other.

exactly,

Before feudal times you probably wouldn't live to BE old and infirm, that would be a rarity, youd likely die first.

Honestly, you can’t stop with the straw man arguments can you. Should I even bother asking where the comments are stating people are not accepting taxes? Assuming they’re with the ones stating that that Muslims are to blame for taxes and that taxes are all Marxist?

If you want to argue against things nobody said, can’t you just do it in your head?

I’m confused about why you think 12 quid an hour is a slave wage but 13 quid is qualitatively different. After taxes, the increase is very little.

It’s not a question of fault, either on the part of the public or businesses. Economics is the reality of how we exchange goods and services, and how the government regulates the economy will have some positive and some negative consequences.

By the way, you keep referring to slave wages. Employment at any particular job is voluntary. You can quit and seek a different one at any time. Equating it to chattel slavery diminishes the true evil of slavery.