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

Not a bad one when determining income tax policy though 😉

More sensible to think of assets rather than income to try and define what’s rich IMO. A top earning grad isn’t rich as is likely to be trying to save up for a deposit on a property and could be in trouble if they lost their job. An old woman could be in a property worth a couple million or two, no mortgage and an income from investments that isn’t particularly high but pays for all she needs must surely be considered rich.

I don’t feel rich because of my income but the fact I don’t have a mortgage and live in a decent place is what makes me realise I’m in a comfortable position.

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

I think my brief phrase is analogous with that [ not often my brevity causes me problems 😉 ]and despite our my love of a “robust debate” I am struggling to believe you took it differently.
Yes obviously you are correct.
Its what i meant though we could argue if it was what i said but even I cannot be arsed with that

Given the other thread shall I just say sorry for the confusion 🙂

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

It can be and wealth may be a better measure but then we would then debate the atypical wealthy pensioner in the massively expensive house with a meagre income. No one measure will work for all cases but income tends to be indicative of rich as the rich tend to have a larger income than the poor

Well yes and no, hence the debate on asset taxes (also limited), consumption, inheritance, stamp duty taxes and other non-income taxes.

You could have just said ‘I know, smartarse’. 😀

“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”

I can’t let Ebay alone, that’s my problem.

Crikey you are ever the optimist 😀

£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.

Yes, but you’d expect lots of people to be able to live on less – pensioners are one group, it’s not like they are saving up for anything, and they get a higher tax band too.

I like the definition of richness, about how long can you not work for – as for 99% of folk (even those earning big money) it isn’t very long.

We use to earn twice the ‘rich’ income, each – didn’t feel rich but we were certainly well off. One thing though is that we didn’t have any large commitments, so when we had to reign it in, we could.

We now live on 3/4’s of what we earned, still comfortable – but no way are we rich.

All very well for people to say “Don’t have a family then”.

However a lot of the current economic problems are actually demographic – there are too few taxpayers to fund the pensions of the previous generations who are living longer. To keep the welfare state ponzi scheme going we all need to have 2 kids each.

The response to my earlier post seemed to imply I was bitching – I’m not. I’m merely making the point that whilst I have a high income, I am sure as hell not wealthy. Every month is very hand to mouth, however I would much rather have a tight financial situation and happy healthy kids who don’t have to spend 10 hours a day in child care.

My decision and quite happy with it. Yes it would be nice to be able to afford a holiday and to be able to afford a takeaway at the weekend. Doubtless there are people with half our household income who have more disposable income – fine. But for once Ed Milliband is half right for once – someone’s gross income does not denote them as ‘rich’.

RichPenny – Member
On £60k, your take home is £3480 a month.
On £40k, your take home is £2502 a month.

– pension
– student loan repayments

If you have household staff – you’re middle class
If you houshold staff have a manager – you’re rich.

I think part of the problem is that the goverment continue to under report inflation. while a 27k salary would have let a small family get by quite nicelly in the north east 10 years ago it simply wouldn’t cut the mustard now, not without a substantial amount of debt.

Correct CaptJon, there are lots of deductions possible which would affect your take home pay. I wasn’t about to start entering them all into Salary Calculator though, just aiming to show that variations have a significant impact on a persons income.

Obviously if you’ve chosen to have a pension, degree education, child, company car etc, these would all affect your income. I can’t see any of them being more fundamental than housing though, which is why I highlighted that one.

RichPenny – Member
Correct CaptJon, there are lots of deductions possible which would affect your take home pay. I wasn’t about to start entering them all into Salary Calculator though, just aiming to show that variations have a significant impact on a persons income.

Obviously if you’ve chosen to have a pension, degree education, child, company car etc, these would all affect your income. I can’t see any of them being more fundamental than housing though, which is why I highlighted that one.

I agree. I think in these debates it is important to highlight the range of factors affecting an individual’s, or more importantly, a household’s income.

Pension isn’t really a ‘choice’ when you think about it. What are you going to live on? Fresh air?

fizzicist – Member

All very well for people to say “Don’t have a family then”.

Well, from what I see at least, it seems young people who have a family, then pretend to separate so they can get free accommodation courtesy of the government are the ones that can afford to go out every night drinking & ordering takeaways, maybe they are just the ones I have had contact with & that was a massive generalisation, but I’m happy to have a big mortgage & fend for myself, which leaves me cash poor in comparison, but I guess it is down to the mindset of the individual & having aspirations of a better life in the future, maybe.

I was introduced to a network of friends who are CEO’s earning half a million a year in shares/bonuses etc.

I plan to quit my teaching job soon.

I was introduced to a network of friends

Is it a pyramid scheme? 😉

I plan to quit my teaching job soon.

…and do what exactly?

Unless you’re going to marry one of said CEOs, I’d stay doing what you do best, which is probably teaching PE…. 😉

Is it a pyramid scheme?

It’s funny, where we live in the commuter belt a lot of ‘London types’ move here for the schools so they can avoid private schooling fees, so you often meet up with people who earn stupid money, but then they normally sort out there own social circle buy the time the kids leave primary school 😉

Pension isn’t really a ‘choice’ when you think about it. What are you going to live on? Fresh air?

It’s the same choice as a student loan. You choose to invest some of your current wealth into your future.

I have no idea what I’m going to live on. Swan?

It would be interesting to compare the table below with a decade ago….

Table 14: Proportion of working-age people currently accruing[1] a non-state pension (2009/10)[2]
Age
Women
Men
16 – 19
2%
3%
20 – 29
21%
19%
30 – 39
41%
44%
40 – 49
47%
55%
50 – SPA[3]
43%
47%
All
37%
40%

I was introduced to a network of toffs and aristocrats at a party last weekend.
I don’t plan to quit my job soon 🙂

Pretty irrelevant to the overall thread, but it’s a graph 😀

No I just got to know them and was offered smaller roles.

My partner is a consultant (self employed) and sells systems to companies.
Systems I helped design and she dragged me to meetings, presenting and explaining.

No pyramids, just thinking.

My background is in medical Physics, maths and business.

I love teaching but the workload and wage is a slap in a face. I’m not mentally challenged.
I would rather work the same hours in bigger projects and more money.

I want to be rich but not sure how to do it other than being innovative and modelling successful people.
Will it happen? Maybe not, but beats £30K a year.

I look at my old friends on £100k a year – I used to tutor or lend my work to. They are not that bright but worked smart and in the right place at the right time.

Helping people was my motive. Now it’s £££££££.

Money won’t make you happy. Only you can.

I would expect that graph to show the richest fifth to be higher than the poorest as most “rich” people would use their investments as their ultimate pension as assuming they are rich because of how they have invested then the growth on their assets would comfortably exceed any normal pension scheme offered by money grabbing companies.

other than being innovative and modelling

I’d model for cash.

Denture manufacturers, call me!

I think in these debates it is important to highlight the range of factors affecting an individual’s, or more importantly, a household’s income.

Lets not lose sight of the obvious fact that having the money to do this the critical one.

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

Or…..Brother of my wife 🙄

Money won’t make you happy. Only you can.

Yet the entire thrust of your explanation suggests that you are desperate to make more money and are envious of those who make more than you.

Good luck.

The original interview was very interesting

for one thing it was quite a positive interview about a labour minister, a woman and a working mum too! it even mentions sexism, in the telegraph!!!

the initial tagline was

Rachel Reeves interview: ‘minimum wage would be £19 an hour if it rose like bosses’ pay’

(like binners she read the toynbee piece that highlighted this- but it was actually ftse100 directors)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10324660/Rachel-Reeves-interview-minimum-wage-would-be-19-an-hour-if-it-rose-like-bosses-pay.html

and heres she states

“The focus should be on a privileged few right at the top, and that’s not people earning £50,000 or £60,000 a year. If you’re a single-earner family in the South East on [that income], you don’t feel particularly rich, and you’d be aggrieved that people earning between £150,000 and £1?million are getting a tax cut. We don’t have any plans or desire to increase tax on people in that band of income.”

posted at 10pm on friday

at 10:02pm an edited version appears via James kirkup

People on £60,000 aren’t rich, says Labour’s Rachel Reeves

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10324739/People-on-60000-arent-rich-says-Labours-Rachel-Reeves.html

were its been changed to

“I think the focus should be on those privileged few right at the top, and that’s not people earning £50,000 or £60,000 a year,” Miss Reeves said in an interview with The Telegraph.

initially she was talking about a couple earning a combined 50-60k (or 25-30k each ie national averageish)
2 minutes later the media had turned it into 60k ers arent rich

either way her offhand comments have opened up an interesting debate and her star seems to be rising in the labour party I wonder what would happen if she were to replace ed balls!!!!!!!
shes no chuka ummana 😉 (I turned off her infamous newsnight speech as it was very dull)

I would expect that graph to show the richest fifth to be higher than the poorest as most “rich” people would use their investments as their ultimate pension as assuming they are rich because of how they have invested then the growth on their assets would comfortably exceed any normal pension scheme offered by money grabbing companies.

Possibly entrepreneurs might be more interested in investing in their ventures earlier on in their working life but beyond that most rich people will have very decent pension pots due to the tax efficient nature of them. Not sure what you are calling a normal pension scheme but most that I am aware of invest unit trusts which isn’t much different to how most people invest their spare cash.

If you’ve got young kids and you earn 25-30K each. You can kiss goodbye to one of those salaries in nursery fee’s. At their peak ours were over £1800 a month. You’d need to earn £28K a year to pay them. I’m in the fortunate position we could pay them. I’m not sure how others manage.

If you’ve got young kids and you earn 25-30K each. You can kiss goodbye to one of those salaries in nursery fee’s. At their peak ours were over £1800 a month. You’d need to earn £28K a year to pay them. I’m in the fortunate position we could pay them. I’m not sure how others manage.

If you’ve got young kids and you earn 25-30K each. You can kiss goodbye to one of those salaries in nursery fee’s. At their peak ours were over £1800 a month. You’d need to earn £28K a year to pay them.

All a choice though, yes?

crikey – Member
If you’ve got young kids and you earn 25-30K each. You can kiss goodbye to one of those salaries in nursery fee’s. At their peak ours were over £1800 a month. You’d need to earn £28K a year to pay them.
All a choice though, yes?

depends…
on your career- a 4 year gap can effectively set you back right to the beginning
…if you want to apply for a mortgage 2 salaries are better than one
… if the main earner (or both- happened to my wife and I this year!) were to loose their job could make a huge difference

Possibly entrepreneurs might be more interested in investing in their ventures earlier on in their working life but beyond that most rich people will have very decent pension pots due to the tax efficient nature of them. Not sure what you are calling a normal pension scheme but most that I am aware of invest unit trusts which isn’t much different to how most people invest their spare cash.

I’m sure your right that the tax benefits outweigh the costs of a pension to most normal people, but I’m not sure they work the same for the really wealthy, heck I know people who’s houses appreciate so fast that they laugh about how cheap interest only mortgages are, they don’t use them as a way to buy a property, they use them to borrow money cheaply to invest in other things that give them a higher return on the money than the amount they pay in interest on the capitol they borrow on.
It doesn’t happen in many areas, but lets just just sight places like Chelsea & Ken for an example.
Rich is after all rich, as I’m sure CFH will be along to tell you soon 😉

Still all a choice; the choice to have children, the choice to both work, the choice to use nursery and so on.

These are life choices which can and do impact on the way you use your income, but I suspect that the majority of two children families across the UK are not spending £1800 a month on nursery fees.

we live in brentford, not the nicest part of london our nursery bill for 2 is over 1800, not even the most expensive nursery in the area

and the original article specifically referred to the SE

wife and I are both professionals on decent salaries
if it wasnt for work childcare vouchers and the fact that I cycle to work every day, packed lunches etc it wouldnt be worth both of us working, Im currently on a short term contract so by xmas it might not be an issue!
childcare is a hugely disproportionate cost to families, and failure to support it only holds back the economy

childcare is a hugely disproportionate cost to families, and failure to support it only holds back the economy

I agree with both of those statements but having children is still a choice, and my opinion is still that the majority of families across the UK (and probably across Greater London) are not spending £1800 a month on nursery fees.

As stated, 60k is the same as 20k if you have the ability to spend it: 30k car instead of 10k, 400k house instead of 180k etc etc…

Jesus Christ, if childcare bills are adding up to 20K PA which is what at least 26K before tax plus travel why doesn’t mum just stay at home, look after the children herself and watch them grow up rather than pay some 18year old girl who could not give a crap to do it for them.

I have no children at the moment but my OH is quite clear that unless is it is massively financially beneficial for her to work she would rather take 4-6 yrs out – So what if she ‘looses’ a few years, at least you will know who your children are!

This career driven mum thing is getting out of hand when it is just for the sake of ‘not setting your career path back a few years’….. Call me old fashioned but this power woman thing is a load of arse.

This career driven mum thing is getting out of hand when it is just for the sake of ‘not setting your career path back a few years’….. Call me old fashioned but this power woman thing crap.

You’ll be taking a few years off to look after your kids then?