Income brackets: PERCEPTIONS of low and high?

Tancred

lostinrates wrote: »

I would ask that we are courteous to each other. I've asked peoe to
Do something not in every bodies comfort zone and I'm keen that they are able to express themselves without ridicule.

Challenging is welcome, and exploration of why we have formed the perceptions we have, but I would ask that ridicule is kept out of 'my' thread.

Hamish mctavish particularly made a plea recently that some of us participate more, and I am trying to respond to that, but while I welcome vociferous and robust debate I would appreciate if people are not ridiculed, particularly on a thread I have started,

I appreciate cooperation from all posters in this regard.

I'm sorry but when utterly extreme figures are churned out, I cannot allow them to go unchallenged. Similarly, if I said that £20k was high income I would expect similar treatment - and it would surely follow.

al25

Tancred wrote: »

I am not bulldozing anything, but something appears to be ridiculous I will point it out. And I also don't accept that a given figure is different for some people rather than others - we are all humans and have the same needs. When it comes to 'wants' that is something else!

No point of any further conversation.The above sentiments explains a lot. I'm out.

lostinrates

Tancred wrote: »

I'm sorry but when utterly extreme figures are churned out, I cannot allow them to go unchallenged. Similarly, if I said that £20k was high income I would expect similar treatment - and it would surely follow.

Your opinion is utterly welcome, challenging is encouraged, as is vibrant debate.

But I would ask you , and others, remain courteous in tone.

I have asked peoe to do something a little off the wall and give a perception.

I'd like it if they feel free to do that with out receiving backlash. Questioning and challenge on why Is super, the idea is hopefully we can all think about our perception and perhaps have our boundaries pushed a little, but I do ask we remain courteous in tone while debating, questioning and even disagreeing.

If we aren't prepared to challenge our own perceptions then there is little point to debate and know knowledge to gain.

lostinrates

al25 wrote: »

No point of any further conversation.The above sentiments explains a lot. I'm out.

Al, please don't go, this is exactly the sort of thing I was trying to avoid .

I found your post illuminating and truly valuable because you added a dimension we had not yet heard.

Please stay.

Tancred

lostinrates wrote: »

Are there houses being sold that suggest personal incomes above these limits? Any business owners for example living ion the nw of England? any leading public sector jobs?
Successful large farms ?

Yes to all of this, but these people form a small percentage of the population. What exactly are you trying to prove? That we are swimming in wealth? House prices are skewed by very high demand and little supply. If 20 people chase one property, the price will be set at a level that only the richest of these 20 will be able to afford.

lostinrates wrote: »

It seems to me impossible that a whole region of England is low paid, (while totally plausible that we all experience a lot of confirmation bias ) which brings it back to a perception of pay and wealth.

Is there any way realistically for people, not individuals interested in this, but a majority of people, to make informed judgments LESS coloured by perception, (and I think this touches ALL of us) ? Can there ever be a summation of situation not impacted by our perception? I cannot quite imagine how that would work?

What you define as 'low pay' is instead the average pay. You appear to live in a cocoon of wealth, so that your perception is doiminated only by what you experience. This has always been the problem in Britain, where class differences are so sharp. Go to somewhere like Australia and it's not like that. In Australia virtually everyone, other than the Abos, is middle class. The poor are a small percentage, and the genuinely rich also. In Britain you find the rich concentrated in London and the south-east, where they form a substantial portion of the population, and live not far from sink council estates full of poverty and deprivation.

Tancred

lostinrates wrote: »

Your opinion is utterly welcome, challenging is encouraged, as is vibrant debate.

But I would ask you , and others, remain courteous in tone.

I have asked peoe to do something a little off the wall and give a perception.

I'd like it if they feel free to do that with out receiving backlash. Questioning and challenge on why Is super, the idea is hopefully we can all think about our perception and perhaps have our boundaries pushed a little, but I do ask we remain courteous in tone while debating, questioning and even disagreeing.

If we aren't prepared to challenge our own perceptions then there is little point to debate and know knowledge to gain.

Believe me, I do try to be courteous, but I'm also a passionate person and I wear my heart very firmly on my sleeve. If that upsets some people, I apologise.

lostinrates

Tancred wrote: »

Yes to all of this, but these people form a small percentage of the population. What exactly are you trying to prove? That we are swimming in wealth? House prices are skewed by very high demand and little supply. If 20 people chase one property, the price will be set at a level that only the richest of these 20 will be able to afford.



What you define as 'low pay' is instead the average pay. You appear to live in a cocoon of wealth, so that your perception is doiminated only by what you experience. This has always been the problem in Britain, where class differences are so sharp. Go to somewhere like Australia and it's not like that. In Australia virtually everyone, other than the Abos, is middle class. The poor are a small percentage, and the genuinely rich also. In Britain you find the rich concentrated in London and the south-east, where they form a substantial portion of the population, and live not far from sink council estates full of poverty and deprivation.

I'm trying to prove nothing. I believe my op was clear. You might refer to it if you have forgotten the nature of the thread?

Thank you for your education of life outside uk and pr!cis of my life , I'll make sure to keep a note of it to refer to should I care to write a memoire . Please refrain from offending people so they feel free to express themselves. If you find the nature or content of this admittedly somewhat fluid thought experiment unpleasant you are free not to participate but I would ask you do not 'bulldoze' people away.


Edit: actually I do see where I typed low paid, so I must correct that......and it actually is not my definition of low paid,.....it was just lazy typing! Apologies!

Tancred

lostinrates wrote: »

I'm trying to prove nothing. I believe my op was clear. You might refer to it if you have forgotten the nature of the thread?

So what exactly is the point of this thread? The facts prove that the average salary is either £26.5k or £31k, depending on whether you choose to go for median or mean average. The readers of this forum are disproportionately highly paid, quite wealthy individuals by comparison with the population at large. Many people hardly ever use the internet, and would also not be interested in economic debates - this does not lessen their importance. The rich perceive only people at their class level. If you asked the Duke of Westminster what he perceives as 'middle income' he would probably come up with £15M a year.

lostinrates

Tancred wrote: »

So what exactly is the point of this thread? .

lostinrates wrote: »

A staggering 8 years ago I started a thread I found quite interesting about perceptions of income brackets.


This interestingly tied in with the announcement on the 'new' higher rate tax bracket of 50% at 150k.

With the new announcement and discussion here, and some time between there I'm interested to see how PERCEPTION of what people see as high and low is now.

I'm not interested in the figures we know or can google. I'm interested about how we feel and if how we feel has changed in the eight :eek: years. (Also whether my typing has significantly improved:rotfl:)


My op then ran a little like this:


Often I read, and refer myself, to low, middle or high earners. I wonder what other posters mean when posting the same phrase, because I often think we have very different perceptions from each other as a group

I used to feel that the tax guidelines were woefully inadaquate (with high earners starting at 40kish) which in parts of the country is not a lot.

I'd be intersting in comparing this with other posters' perception and finding out what you all class as low/medium/high (super-rich -high?) and if your perception changes when talking about couples rather than individuals (as that often comes up in debate too.) Is high different to super rich-making four categories or inclusive of it?

as a point of discussion does the new high tax ban lead to the definition of the 40k-150k 'middle rate tax payers' as middle earners' ?

[/QUOTE]

Tancred wrote: »

facts prove that the average salary is either £26.5k or £31k, depending on whether you choose to go for median or mean average. The readers of this forum are disproportionately highly paid, quite wealthy individuals by comparison with the population at large. Many people hardly ever use the internet, and would also not be interested in economic debates - this does not lessen their importance. The rich perceive only people at their class level. If you asked the Duke of Westminster what he perceives as 'middle income' he would probably come up with £15M a year.

This is obviously a self selecting group of people. I'm interested in the response but not interested enough to canvas in a truelY balanced
Way, you are right. Thankfully, we don't require that to let threads run.

Because its a debate board on an open forum we are free, if courteous, on topic to do such things for interest only. Just as we can discuss the real stats for no real point. (We don't really impact on economic policy even there).

I do think it would be rather fruitless to start an economic discussion, let alone a somewhat philosophical one with people who had no interest on it though, so I feel its not the worst place to have posted it. Its struck a chord with some.

The things that are of interest might differ to different readers. For example, you highlight the FACTS. . I think its quite hard for us to have a factual grasp of the real situation in such a complex economic system.

Tancred, I repeat, while your courteous opinion is welcome, discourtesy is not and no one is required to contribute:)

tomterm8

Tancred wrote: »

So what exactly is the point of this thread? The facts prove that the average salary is either £26.5k or £31k, depending on whether you choose to go for median or mean average. The readers of this forum are disproportionately highly paid, quite wealthy individuals by comparison with the population at large. Many people hardly ever use the internet, and would also not be interested in economic debates - this does not lessen their importance. The rich perceive only people at their class level. If you asked the Duke of Westminster what he perceives as 'middle income' he would probably come up with £15M a year.

Er, if we were required to have a point to a thread a fair few threads I've started on the board would never have existed. I'd have probably been banned years ago:D

Lostinrates posted the thread because she was interested in what people perceive, not necessarily in the actual facts. Differences between perceptions and facts can be interesting in themselves.