A lot of rich people don’t consider themselves rich, let alone people earning £60k before tax.

Companies such as Starbucks charge for their products what they think they can get away with, and pay as little wages as they think they can get away with, it has nothing to do with whether they pay their taxes or not, the idea is to maximize profit.

+1

60k is a lot of money…
I earn less than a third of that and still survive paying for 2 kids and the missus doesn’t work.

just because you earn 60k doesn’t mean you have to get a massive house and mortgage but people choose to do so then moan they don’t have enough money because 60% of it goes on the mortgage, i live on less than the 40% they would have left in total including my rent so have no sympathy

Aye, but families who have £50k negative equity do not own an expensive house, their banks do.

Negative equity of 50k rarely happens and i doubt it accounts for many people these days.
Its strange that many well off people dont realise how well of they are but the statistics dont lie re median wages and SD above the norm.
I am not rich as after I have paid the payments on the yacht, the chateaux in France , the roller, the house and the staff I have barely any money left over for me.

I think house prices skew what is well off [ a syou may have a small disposable income] but one day you will own a very expensive house that you could sell and move somewhere else and be very well off in your old age. Someone poor will still be poor in 25 years but you will not

£60k household income puts you in the top 15% in the UK. The median is down in the low £20’s – in other words half the households live on less.
£60 / year is RICH. If you choose to spend it on mortgages, that’s your choice, but don’t whinge.

£60 / year is RICH. If you choose to spend it on mortgages, that’s your choice, but don’t whinge.

I haven’t seen anyone whinging. Not sure what prompted the OP, but as another poster pointed out – most people earning £60k a year won’t be “rich” for long if they lose their job.

Which is why I feel Londoners are daft. (Edit – following Moses comment)

I earn a reasonable amount as does my wife and in the outskirts of York can afford a reasonable house.

I’d want 50% more cash before I even considered moving to the wasteland that is the southeast.

No-one ever thinks they’re rich, you just find more expensive stuff to spend money on.

60k is plenty. Our household income is less than half that at the mo and we live pretty comfortably. Not in the SE though, and we don’t have kids.

I do get slightly sick of some people moaning about how skint they are as they sit in their massive house discussing plans for their next expensive foreign holiday.

wiggles – Member

60k is a lot of money…
I earn less than a third of that and still survive paying for 2 kids and the missus doesn’t work.

just because you earn 60k doesn’t mean you have to get a massive house and mortgage but people choose to do so then moan they don’t have enough money because 60% of it goes on the mortgage, i live on less than the 40% they would have left in total including my rent so have no sympathy

To be honest, you sound quite bitter about it

Lots of envy politics on STW as ever. £60k when you’re on your own is enough for a very affluent lifestyle.

£60k when you’re supporting a family of 4 is altogether another matter.

To be honest, you sound quite bitter about it

I don’t think he comes across bitter just to the point.

It’s all relative at the end of the day, me and my wife may make that a year between us but having no kids means we are better off than my mate who earns that and a little more yet has three kids.

Either way think of the all the shiny bike stuff you could buy 🙂

Why do people keep making out that people on £60k are “moaning about it”

They aren’t.

This discussion is about a politician who said earning £60k doesn’t make you rich.

This is the 1st time a labour mp has got anything right, I’m staggered!
60k is not rich, its comfortable.

60k is a lot of money…
I earn less than a third of that and still survive paying for 2 kids and the missus doesn’t work.

On your salary, the average rent in Greater London would be 96% of your income. In the NE it would be 38%.

just because you earn 60k doesn’t mean you have to get a massive house and mortgage but people choose to do so then moan they don’t have enough money because 60% of it goes on the mortgage, i live on less than the 40% they would have left in total including my rent so have no sympathy

In plenty of places, a £1500 monthly mortgage wouldn’t get you a 3 bed house. Equally, in other places a £750 mortgage would get you a castle.

£60k when you’re supporting a family of 4 is altogether another matter.

Then don’t have a family you can’t afford or send your wife to work. As me and my missus are both good with maths, we’ll be laughing when we’re both on 60k.

On your salary, the average rent in Greater London would be 96% of your income. In the NE it would be 38%.

It’s from my understanding that most reputable companies also take the cost of living in London into account, hence higher wages in London for similar roles further up North.

Full time nursery for 3 kids would probably consume a £60k salary!

Well as we are the 7 th richest country in the world and you are in the top 15% of them I think you would need to have a pretty poor grasp of stats to think it is not rich.

Problem is it is a value loaded term that gets emotive reactions and on that point can we leave the bitter and politics of envy weak slurs to one side perhaps?

Full time nursery for 3 kids would probably consume a £60k salary!

Send the wife to work then or use contraception. Catholic?

Better yet, move your rents next door if they aren’t dead and go old school by having an extended family.

The people who get rich, really really old several generations rich are the ones who live within their means and slowly accumulate it.

I think rich is when you dont bother looking at the price of things.

I’d better tell my girlfriend that she’s ‘rich’, then. 😆

My boss is a millionaire. His boss is a billionaire.

No-one on 60k will ever feel rich compared with them…!

My brother in law earns 130k a year. His new girlfriend earns around the same (she does the same job for a different office overseas). The way he whines and moans you’d think he was scraping by on Jobseeker’s Allowance.

I am jealous and I do hate him.

£60k + £20k here and we are far from ‘rich’ – 1 child, modest house, little bit of money mis-management in the past, but all catered for now, not a lot in the way of material possessions. Don’t have to worry about anything, but on the other hand, not particularly thrifty either.

fervoured – have you told your sister about the new girlfriend…

60k? That’d almost pay for one of George Osbourne’s skiing holidays! 😉

It’s from my understanding that most reputable companies also take the cost of living in London into account, hence higher wages in London for similar roles further up North.

Quite correct. But the premise of the thread seems to be that if you earn £60k you are rich, regardless of circumstances. By that token, you could maybe earn £45k in the NE and be similarly rich due to base housing costs. Therefore, if you earn £60k in the NE you’d be richer than someone on the same salary in Greater London, all other things being equal.

Please note that I’m not arguing against higher taxes, just pointing out that it is all relative.

I’m sure there are no £60k households living on the poverty line, but you’re certainly not going to get rich on this, especially if you live in the SE. Maybe if you’re single living with your parents, yes. But a typically family of 4 will just be making ends meet on this salary. Of course they’re going to be living in a bigger house than someone on half the salary, but it certainly wont be a beachside mansion or a big country pile. It’ll most likely be a typical house on a typical housing estate.

You’ve got the top 1% of wage earners contributing to over a third of the tax bill, with the bottom 10% only contributing to 0.6% but consuming the vast majority. The squeezed middle contributing to almost two thirds of the tax bill. Not exactly a balanced and fair society.

If you’re a family of 4 with a household income of £60k a year, you’ll have a mortgage, child care costs that will be as much as your mortgage and nothing in return from the government. This doesn’t leave a huge amount of disposable income out of the monthly salary – and its not going on a huge savings and investment portfolio. This doesn’t feel like my definition of rich, not by monetary standards at least.

The squeezed middle don’t want anything from the government, they would just like more of their own cash for themselves. And no-one should apologise to any spiteful, jealous socialist for that.

And we’re not really the 7th richest nation in the world. Not when you bake into it our national debt to GDP ratio, which is worse than any of the PIGS nations. Its only our ability to keep on leveraging cheap debt that is keeping this country afloat. As soon as that is cut off or restricted then we’re in for a collapse that will make Greece look like a minor crisis.

Send the wife to work then or use contraception. Catholic?

My wife will never earn 60k. And she’s catholic 🙁 Double **** 🙁

Better yet, move your rents next door if they aren’t dead and go old school by having an extended family.

My FIL has been living with us for 6 months. MIL was here for about 8 months before that. Not easy with a small child in a 2 bed flat.

Any other suggestions?

We’re a family of four hitting around 24k per annum between us.. We consider ourselves comfortable.. S’all relative innit

You’ve got the top 1% of wage earners contributing to over a third of the tax bill, with the bottom 10% only contributing to 0.6% but consuming the vast majority. The squeezed middle contributing to almost two thirds of the tax bill. Not exactly a balanced and fair society.

Another way to look at it is that the top 1% contribute a third of the tax bill, and earn a third of total income. At least it was a similar profile last time I looked. That top 1% need the labour of everyone else to generate the income they have. Don’t they ultimately benefit the most from having a healthy, well-educated and happy workforce?

the average rent in Greater London would be 96% of your income

So who cleans the toilets?
Who works in the newsagents?
Who sweeps the streets?
Who empties the bins?
Who does all the jobs that earn way less than 60K?

…and where do they live?

It’s probably the same person, living in an HMO with 15 other people.

The folks who compare it in line with geographical location are banging the nail on the head. Where we temporarily live a 2 bed flat is £500k minimum. £60k won’t get you into that. Where we normally live £500k gets you a 5 bed detached house. It’s all relative.

the average rent in Greater London would be 96% of your income
So who cleans the toilets?
Who works in the newsagents?
Who sweeps the streets?
Who empties the bins?
Who does all the jobs that earn way less than 60K?

…and where do they live?

They travel in from a long long way away.

So who cleans the toilets?…

I imagine that to any of these groups 60k is properly rich. It probably all depends on your constituents

They travel in from a long long way away.

What?
All of them?
All travelling in from outside Greater London?
Every day?

Either that particular part of the country is even more knackered than we all assume, or that’s not actually the case.

uponthedowns – Member

I like the architect Buckminsterfuller’s definition.

If you stopped working tomorrow and your unearned income covers your monthly expenditure then you are wealthy.

If your unearned income more than covers your monthly expenditure then you are rich- and that by the way is why the rich just keep getting richer as the spare income is invested.

I rather like this definition as it depends on how much you spend so in theory you could be rich on quite a modest income.
I think the above about sums it up. Anyone who has a mortgage or only owns one property isn’t rich in my eyes. It’s hilarious reading some of the replies on here…typical STW, lots of folk commenting on things they know nothing about. It’s the same with some of mates who judge peoples wealth on what car they drive! 😀

Thats a terrible basis to decide
Firstly the term unearned income has a various meanings and if we took the Labour Theory of Value version someone retired or on benefits could be wealthy yet someone earning millions could be poor as they former can live on unearned income and the later has to work for their millions.

Any method must , at the bare minimum, take into account what you actually get in deciding if you are rich.
Its an interesting debate as to the range of values associated that folk give

FWIW IMHO every single person in this country is wealthy as , despite the current govts best efforts, its almost impossible to die from illness/ disease or malnutrition/poverty.

Go see the third world if you wish to see real poverty and then , hopefully, reconsider your position on whether 60 k , a nice house, car etc is “not rich”
Some her efind the rich in a rich country as not rich.

Income is a very poor measure for defining “rich”.

its almost impossible to die from illness/ disease

Er….

I know you like a ‘robust debate’ Junkyard, but I may have to question the above comment, because we pretty much all die from an illness or a disease apart from traumatic injuries and severe old age.

We are more fotunate than most in that we have a fairly well respected publicly funded healthcare system, but we still die of stuff.