Can we stop acting like everyone has an equal capability to become well off?

[DeluluTaylor]

Based on the pension thread but not about OP. All this ‘why do people spend their whole lives on MW’ is so woefully ignorant. Some people don’t have a choice.
Neurodiversity
confidence
childcare availability
institutional racism
learning disabilities
trauma and it’s impact
Lifelong insecure housing
Being able to speak English but not write it
So many, many reasons why it is difficult to climb up the ladder. I’ve never been able to as I don’t have the right skills for management. But the world needs more worker bees than managers!
Who do they think should do these jobs?

Tudors was only in year 3 iirc

I used to teach 16-18 year olds at an FE college many years ago. I had a student who had done very well on the course and showed a lot of promise. I asked him if he was planning to go on to university and he laughed in my face. I told him that he really should be seriously considering it and if he wanted to apply I’d help him with his application, which I did and to his shock he was accepted.

Years later he got in touch with me on Facebook. He was married with children and had a great job in IT. He wanted to thank me for pushing him towards uni. He told me that nobody in his life had ever mentioned uni as a possibility. Not his parents nor relatives, or even any of his schoolteachers. He had believed that uni wasn’t for people like him, because he didn’t know anyone else who had gone.

This was a young lad from an inner-city sink comprehensive school. Nobody had any expectations of him. He was very obviously a very smart young man, yet nobody had seen his potential. Nobody had encouraged or supported him. That is heartbreaking, and there are countless young men and women in the same boat.

For some people, just having a person give a shit is a ‘privilege’ that others sadly don’t have.

Other country’s bring this in big time at 13/14 - I remember even Kenneth baker thought it made sense

🥱

If there's one belief that's nails down a blackboard to me, it's 'well, if I can do it, anybody can do it'. Talk about false humility.

It’s not writing people off. Its acknowledging that the battle is not the same for everyone so judging people who have not moved beyond certain points in life indicates a woeful lack of understanding this.

Blame rising rents and bills for people working full time needing to get benefit top ups, not the people doing important but low paid work.

It's a mix, isn't it? I've done very well for myself and partly due to extremely hard work but partly also luck (loving parents, encouragement from the right people).

I do know people from school who were prettier, smarter and richer than me and have really not done well at all. They made a series of bad choices in their early 20s that are hard to come back from.

I am eternally grateful to my (poor, immigrant) parents who drilled it into me that school is the only way out. If you don't do well at school, adult life is 100 times harder. And it's so, so true. I'm in my late 30s, doing very well, because I did so well at school.

What were their bad choices? I also drilled into my kids that they should work hard at school or their options would be limited. Didn't want them to grow up stuck on a low wage job, having to struggle.

That’s a very ignorant statement. In my last organisation (admittedly not on NMW, but a very piddly amount of pence per hour more than NNW) my output kept the cogs turning in terms of our services and activities for the general public, and generated income for the organisation. Without my work, and the work of others at the same level, the organisation simply wouldn’t have run/been fit for purpose.

The ‘Head of’ overseeing my team, on considerably higher than NMW? Floated from meeting to meeting, writing on flip-chart paper, sticking post-its on the walls, talking a whole lot about nothing to justify their position while having no proper overview of the organisation and making no real contribution to its successful running. All in between their reflective pieces posted on LinkedIn…(Now if we’re talking LinkedIn output/blowing one’s own trumpet, then I hold my hands up - a vast amount of people at the top DEFINITELY trump me in that regard!).

I think you will find the above example playing out across organisations of all shapes and sizes. I was “more productive” and “worth more” in every sense of the word than the “Head of”.

I am not for a second saying that this is the case of ALL senior level staff. I get that many at the top have worked bloody hard and made sacrifices along the way to achieve what they have. And they continue to work hard and use their expertise for the benefit of their workplaces. And of course, there are people at the bottom who have always had a poor attitude to work/do not care one jot about their output…

….But “they generate less output…” is very ignorant.

Many people at the bottom of the pile actually hold the whole thing up. Many years ago I worked in a police control room. One day as I worked away the chief inspector dropped by for a chat, to see what was happening. He said to me, ' you know, you are the most important person in the place. If I wasn't here police work would continue, but if you aren't sitting there, answering phones, putting jobs on the computer and telling police officers what to do, it would be chaos'. The people who do the grunt work are often the ones doing the most important stuff. It's about getting work done, the people at the top might write reports or strategies but they don't do the work.

@loislovesstewieI agree. I used to work in a big hospital. People on the wards being paid just over NMW running around like blue assed flies. The band 8’s (managers) who had mostly done their time in clinical roles were just sending emails to us, the workforce, from managers above them. It literally was receiving emails and sending them on. I’ll never forget one day I woke up at 6am to try to get things sorted for a busy day ahead, dropped kids off, ran to Coop for a lunch for one child, and saw one of the top managers cheerfully trying to choose between meal deal options, taking his time, not a care in the world. And I thought, why am I, a band 3 waking up at 6am, stressing about a difficult transfer and the logistics of the patient transfer, rushing my DCs to breakfast club, and this man on 80,000 more than me, isn’t worried about any of this stuff? Yet they get the pat on the back from CQC. I reckon I saw the top manager on the hospital wards once in 5 years. Once!

Also can we stop pretending that working hard at school is all it takes? I have a degree, I used to work in a shop where every employee had at least a BA or a BSc. My mum has a degree. We’re all in minimum wage jobs, although I’ve retrained so on a bit more now. Being clever isn’t the only criteria. I got a degree in English, it’s never opened any doors for me at all. All I could do is teach English. I didn’t get onto any grad schemes. Education isn’t enough.

@Ashahanteso I take it you would endorse whole families sleeping rough on the streets, hungry children and a huge increase in suicide. Cool. Don’t forget, before benefits, children did starve. Do you want workhouses back?

I mean. You did English..... What do you expect? It's not stem, economics or law is it.

Absolutely agree that a degree isnt a guarantee of a super high flying well paid career. . Yes, it can open doors if you're lucky, but my BA History of Art degree seems to have not made me rich - I'm not on even NMW as a freelancer. 🫣

I read a news article a couple of days ago which said that the best degrees for the best paid jobs are not the arts, but finance, IT and accountancy ones. They were talking about ones in America but I think that I'd say it reflects the general level of best degrees for well paid jobs.

I endorse families being reliant on their own incomes and not the taxpayer and not on me and my family's hard work.

I wouldn't mind workfare, I'd prefer it actually.

We did engineering. Have DC done economics or science degrees.

English isn't all that bad. I know some lovely ladies who did English who are know doing well in the fast stream or have joined a publishing company.

But he obviously had high intelligence and drive. ND is common in all populations, and is not necessarily a handicap, it just doesn't fit in with current educational norms. I know of two men who built up huge multimillion £ businesses despite being totally illiterate. However, that doesn't mean all people who can't read and write could do this, and for many it would be a massive obstacle to success.

I’ve never seen anyone on MN claim they everybody has equal capacity to become well off. What I have seen is people pointing out that people from the same starting point and with the same capabilities make different choices which lead to different outcomes.

in the context of pensions, I have a very good one…. because I’ve worked full time for almost all my adult life, bar a very short amount of time when my babies were tiny and I worked 3 days a week. Some of the decisions I made:

-continuing in work even when our nursery bills were equivalent to my take home pay (this was before any subsidised childcare)
-stepping back up to full time as soon as my youngest was in the toddler room at nursery
-actively seeking promotions (even though it would have been less work to remain on a lower level for large parts of my working life.)

Some people make different decisions. I have at least two acquaintance of my age (approaching 60) who were either SAHM for a long time, or chose to remain working part time forever after having kids (even when those kids were grown up so I’m not talking about childcare issues here.)

This isn’t about judging people’s decisions - if a woman chooses to never work full time again after having children and her partner is ok with that, it’s their decision. But it seems pretty obvious that it’s going to have a massive impact financially particularly when it comes to pensions.

so I agree that obviously everybody doesn’t have equal capacity, but there is also a huge variation in the decisions people make along the way.

I think the thing is if you look at society on a macro level of course not everyone can be high earning and it wouldn’t be feasible, as you say we need larger numbers of workers at the lower spend of scale.

But on a micro level, we all have one life to live and one life we are in control of, and we should strive to do the best we individually can, and I think that’s where the advice comes from.

At a practical level I know everyone has different skills and expectations (and life experience), I just don’t comprehend or relate to not being aspirational I suppose. It just literally never occurred to me that I would be low income, I’ve had a goal and a vision all my life and have just aimed for that unfalteringly, even though I came from quite a low income background myself. Even when I unexpectedly became pregnant young, it didn’t stop me. I suppose on an ignorant level you just assume other people think like you (even if that’s a bit irrational).

so I agree that obviously everybody doesn’t have equal capacity, but there is also a huge variation in the decisions people make along the way.

I find it interesting and significant that you write that lengthy post appearing to suggest that if everyone made equally sound decisions , they would all arrive at a similarly elevated position.

All it takes along that route is one bit of ill health in yourself or someone very close to you, one move to a company where the boss turns out to be incompetent or impossible to work for in ways that didn't show during recruitment, one company merger, one compromise to do what's best for your partnership/family and any one of a million other circumstances or bits of bad luck, and your careful decisions go all to pot.

You can't get to the top without working hard and taking the right decisions.

Working hard and making the right decisions will not get you to the top without luck.

You are clearly one of those blessed with ability to progress. A great many arent. Whether its due to lack of ability or lack of opportunity.
Most people people work "flipping hard". Probably flipping harder in unrewarding poorly paid ,unfullfilling jobs.
Plenty of capable people will not progress because they dont have the qualifications or the education level or the right background.

Just as many are not intellectually capable of great things. Thats not putting them down. Every human parameter exists in a bell curve. From gifted to ordinary to low level. The vast majority are ordinary. If you are Ordinary from a non priviledged background where you are hepled along, you not likely to achieve greatness.
It is certainly not a level playing field.

That one in a million self made millionaire who was an orphan in a slum but still made it is not the norm.
"Anybody can be anything if they work hard" is peddling a lie.

I agree OP. Just because the exceptional person has overcome great odds and succeeded doesn't mean everyone can. I don't agree that's limiting to those people, but I do think it's grossly unfair to them to suggest they should "just" overcome their difficulties because others have.

I’m the child of immigrant parents and also came here as a baby. As a toddler, we lived in homeless hotels after my dad lost his accommodation. He became chronically unwell and died when I was a teenager. I’m the middle of six children. You can question why there were so many of us — there were reasons. I may not agree with them all, but I understand them.
After my dad died, my mum raised six kids alone. She’d been his carer and didn’t know her rights. We lived hand to mouth. No holidays. No extras.
I got a job at 16 to pay for college, then worked through university to cover rent and expenses. I nearly didn’t sit my finals because my fees hadn’t been paid — a friend helped me understand my rights. I kept going, got a graduate job, saved hard, and supported my family home.
My husband also grew up with a single mother. He worked from 18 to help pay her mortgage and saved for a deposit on a flat. We paid for our own wedding and furnished our home with gift money.
We spent years scraping by while he tried to build businesses. There were failures. There were months — even years — when nothing was left after bills. He worked evenings and weekends while we raised three children. Family time was often sacrificed.
Nearly 18 years on, I’m in a strong position in my sector, achieved through hard work and further study — even while raising three children, including one with serious health needs. I reduced my hours at one point, and thankfully my employer supported me. My husband eventually built successful businesses through grit and persistence, even when both of us felt like giving up.
None of it came easy.
I was later diagnosed with ADHD. I struggle with confidence and periods of depression. I’m still always slightly afraid we’ll lose everything.
Most people wouldn’t know my background. I don’t share it for sympathy. I share it because while the system can feel stacked against you, it isn’t impossible.
I don’t judge others. I just urge people — don’t give up. Keep trying