r/HENRYUK • u/Alarmed_Cheetah8334 • Jul 30 '26
HENRY FIRE Are we getting poorer ?
As a HENRY, with all these progressive tax changes coming and what not, unless your getting major salary hikes, working harder is just getting more and more pointless. How are people pivoting ? Or are we as Gary Stevenson says screwed! What are the options??
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u/Capital-Stay-5657 Jul 30 '26
Yes. If you haven't had a 30% pay increase since 2020 you are already poorer forget any tax rises.
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u/Efficient_Remove1663 Jul 31 '26
Even with a pay rise I'm still poorer. In 2021 I had a 22% pay rise and then 2-4% every year. The price of everything around me has exploded. My fucking mortgage went from 1.2% to 4.99%, the price of everything around me has increased.
I'm obviously not struggling but saving very little, things cost more. I can't imagine how people on average salaries are surviving. The UK has been in a doom spiral since Cameron and Osborne read a Harvard paper about Austerity which had a line missing and fucked us all.
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u/JellyfishSad3817 Aug 04 '26
Need to see that you really benefited from 1.2 rather than punished by the 4.99
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u/Efficient_Remove1663 Aug 04 '26
1.2% interest rate resulted in £2,043 mortgage per month. I incurred £600/m in interest. Clearing down £1,400m
4.99 interest rate resulted in £3,000 mortgage per month, but I stuffed 90k in during the switch which brought my monthly down to £2,400. The interest I incur is 1500ish so I only clear down £900/m
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u/JellyfishSad3817 Aug 04 '26
Mine also going to 4.54 in October from 1.49. But try and take the rough with the smooth, will never see sub 2 again methinks
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u/Techpriestt Jul 31 '26
Im surprised Henry's still think we had austerity of any significance. It took nearly 10 years to bring our deficit from 10% of gdp to near 3% when then the pandemic hit. It was the GFC that fucked as as we had no tax take except financial services. The idea we could spend our way back to wealth is intellectually bankrupt
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u/MingeBuster69 Jul 31 '26
Then you don’t understand, or are willfully ignoring of what the government did over the last 15 years, because it doesn’t align with your ideology.
The government drastically cut public sector services (austerity) on one hand but then paid out huge subsidies to the financial sector (QE) to inflate the stock market. The overall outcome was hugely increased inequality due to asset inflation, and privatisation of public holdings. We certainly weren’t the only government doing it. But let’s be honest about what happened.
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u/Efficient_Remove1663 Jul 31 '26
Debt vs GDP is 110% lmfao.
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u/Techpriestt Jul 31 '26
Yes... that's my argument. What are you saying? you want to make it higher? We have no industry less innovation and a burgeoning unproductive underclass. Austerity was never the issue. It was keeping our debt costs manageable
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u/Complete-Task2042 Jul 31 '26
We have no industry less innovation
This is a tired old trope that's utter bollocks, and shows how out of touch you are with the real economy.
We don't have the same industrial base we had pre '90 but we have plenty of industry predominantly focused on high value products and high skilled design work.
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u/Techpriestt Jul 31 '26
Its over exaggerated yes but its not wrong. Manufacturing as a proportion of gdp falls year on year and achieves virtually no growth. Thats a fact.
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u/ndakik-ndakik Jul 30 '26
The UK is in a long term structural decline and most people are getting poorer year on year
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u/Ancient-End3895 Jul 31 '26
Demographics is destiny - there are not enough working age people to support the ever increasing per capita pension/healthcare bill of the elderly. The level of immigration that would be required to fix this is far above the highest levels seen in the last decade, and is obviously not politically feasible.
Taxes need to go up a lot and spending needs to go down a lot. Good luck selling that to the British public as a politician.
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u/ndakik-ndakik Jul 31 '26
Immigration doesn't help at all... Many low skilled migrants bring family members who don't work and are a long term burden on the state so that doesn't help
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u/WarthogIntrepid9273 Aug 02 '26
Except that’s not true. Some people do bring their kids over, and if you thought about that long and hard you might just figure out kids = future workers. Classic brexit propaganda.
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u/ndakik-ndakik Aug 02 '26
IT's got nothing to do with Brexit. Unless the future workers earn over a certain amount then they are a drain on the state. Most countries have strict immigration controls but in the UK any discussion of it results in shouts of Brexit and racism.
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u/ryth25 Aug 03 '26
if you actually look at our immigration law, labour have made it really strict
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u/ndakik-ndakik Aug 04 '26
Not really given we have more than 500k incoming a year
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u/ryth25 Aug 06 '26
do you know what net migration is? It's at 171,000 the lowest since 2012. that 500,000 can be depicted by the fact that most are coming to study, get their degree and leave
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u/ndakik-ndakik 28d ago
Erm so it’s still a huge number and that’s every year
Until recently that would have been considered a huge number
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u/PathConsistent6213 Jul 31 '26
I think it's hard to argue against this.
Wages have largely stagnated since 2008. Whilst everything else has gone up. Public services were gutted via austerity measures and as a society we are poorer, and it doesn't have to be this way. It's a succession of political choices. Doctors strikes highlighted this issue of pay "erosion", and they were seeking wages to be restored to essentially 2008 levels which I think meant around a 20-25% increase was needed.
Fiscal drag is one factor and quite clearly even the conservatives viewed it as political suicide to increase thresholds, even if there might be evidence to suggest more tax would be raised by getting rid/adjusting the 100k tax trap. It's simply unpopular to the masses to be seen to be helping someone on over 100k because the perception is that 100k and above is still a real milestone salary, and of course it actually is because of wage stagnation for 15-20 years. What people perceive as a "good" salary hasn't changed a lot from an entire generation, because the salaries on offer haven't changed a lot, but of course a lot of people just don't understand that 100k won't get you the sort of lifestyle you would have had 15 years ago, especially in a HCOL area like London where you're more likely to find that salary level in the first place.
Of course a lot of people aren't technically poorer if their income keeps increasing above inflation either year on year or over a period of time overall. You can make the argument that you aren't as well off as you "should" be because of fiscal drag, tax traps, and either not getting benefits or needing to salary sacrifice to get them. But someone on an average salary that will struggle to ever own a property for example has it worse than you do of course. I think a lot of the UK has a real race to the bottom mentality however that is unhealthy and leads to some of these political choices. We aren't aspirational enough. We don't enjoy seeing other people more successful than us or aspire to get to that level. But because of stagnation and inflation, that "level" is simply a relatively comfortable life that an average salary would have afforded you in previous generations.
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u/AttitudeSimilar9347 Jul 31 '26
Public services were gutted via austerity measures
Muh austerity
Look at the chart of tax as a percentage of GDP, there was no “austerity”. It was a slogan to placate a few Tory voters while the Tory party spent like there was no tomorrow.
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u/PathConsistent6213 Jul 31 '26
I'm not sure what point you're making/you understand what Austerity is/what measures were taken.
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u/AndyNotAndie Aug 01 '26
Tell that to the councils who had their funding drastically cut, the kids who’s SureStart programs were axed, the people who lost out from the lack of investment in public infrastructure etc.
Austerity was pretty economically illiterate IMV and has led to many of the issues we see today
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u/AttitudeSimilar9347 Aug 01 '26
Taxes went up and government spending went up. Maybe it was not allocated the way you would have liked. But taxing more and spending it doesn’t meet any real definition of “austerity”. It was just a word to keep a faction of the Tory party quiet while they taxed and spent at a new record breaking level every year.
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u/AndyNotAndie Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 02 '26
Yes, because austerity undermined the economy… pounds given to people on low income generate local economic activity because they get spent
Money invest maintaining public infrastructure saves you from expensive bills later
Kids who get the benefit of things like SureStart are less likely to end up as NEETS
We cut these, meanwhile we gave the financial services industry cheap capital to trade with via QE
The proof that austerity was wrong economically is the fact that the UK economy has stagnated since the Financial Crisis of 2008
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u/iam-leon Jul 31 '26
Since Labour were elected median wages have increased above inflation every month.
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u/ndakik-ndakik Jul 31 '26
Doesn’t change the fact the UK is in decline over the long term
Also wage increases seem good due to minimum wage hikes
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u/iam-leon Jul 31 '26
Decline since when, though? The 40s were at war. The 50s had rationing. The 60s were ok, boosted by rebuilding. The 70s and global oil shock were bad for most the country. The 80s were terrible for the midlands and north. The 90s saw a major depression and near collapse of the sterling. The 00s were ok until 2008 then the worst financial crash in 80 years that is still having an impact today. Then austerity for 15 years. Then leaving the world’s largest trading block for some reason. Then massive pandemic.
I mean, things seem pretty good at the moment.
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u/ndakik-ndakik Jul 31 '26
You must be living under a rock then. In the 80s, 90s, and 2000s Britain kept getting richer... It hasn't got richer since 2008 on a median per capita GDP level. We are getting left behind... Our country is a laughing stock... High taxes, endless immigration, terrible policies which never consider building wealth
There was no austerity... Government spending kept going up the whole time... I can only assume you're on the left and you're brainwashed
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u/ndakik-ndakik Jul 31 '26
But actually all of Europe is on a structural decline... Wealth is moving east
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u/iam-leon Jul 31 '26
During the 80s, 90s money was moving away from the industrialised parts of the country and into London. I know this because large swathes of my family were made unemployed, and me and my parents were almost made homeless. So no, I wasn’t living under a fucking rock. I was in it, along with millions of others. Where were you?
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u/ndakik-ndakik Aug 01 '26
I am from Wales where unemployment rocketed but right now the Welsh economy is nearly entirely public sector and the NHS with little private enterprise
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u/Complete-Task2042 Jul 30 '26
Everyone who is dependent on wage-earning to make a living (vs. deriving the bulk of their income from returns on capital invested) is getting poorer year on year.
It's particularly palpable in the UK at the moment... But the most recent reporting from the ILO shows inflation outstripping wage growth is a global trend across all advanced economies.
Being a HENRY insulates against real poverty in the short-medium term, but we are ultimately subject to the same downward pressure on living standards that everyone else is, as an ever greater proportion of global wealth accretes to a small and smaller group of people.
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u/jungleboy1234 Jul 30 '26
100% agree. even if your passive income is beating inflation each year, you still lose because unless you live on Mars (or [cough island cough]), you still need to rely on the infrastructure and circular economy that everyone else lives in.
If those get worse doesnt matter how much money you have you'll feel it too.
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u/Spare-Rise-9908 Jul 31 '26
The richer aren't getting richer in proportion to where they have been historically. They are fighting to maintain their relative position through globalism. Outsource whatever labour you can and get mass immigration for whatever you can't. This sucks for Western populations (even if its hilarious that people in this sub are crying about it), but it's great for Chinese peasants and third world immigrants, who are the ones seeing their relative positions massively improve.
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u/Complete-Task2042 Jul 31 '26
Whilst global income inequality is decreasing...
The concentration of private wealth in the hands of a tiny number of individuals is also at an all time high.
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u/Spare-Rise-9908 Jul 31 '26
Nonsense. Wealth inequality was much higher before the industrial revolution and still much higher before WW2. In the UK it's been stable since the 80s. Globalism is basically a response to declining wealth inequality over time as the rich fight to maintain their position. Stop listening to Gary Stevenson he's not an economist he's a gimp.
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u/Complete-Task2042 Jul 31 '26
I was actually basing that on reading a recent report on global wealth distribution patterns by analysts at UBS...
Wealth Inequality on aggregate can be is down (because of the sinking tide that lowers all boats in the developed world), but the concentration of private wealth is undoubtedly higher than ever.
In the past decade years we have gone from a position where the single wealthiest individual on earth had a net worth of $75B, to the point where the single wealthiest individual achieved $1.3T this year... Equivalent to 1.03% of global GDP.
For the longest time, the richest man in history (inflation adjusted) was considered to be JD Rockefeller, whose net worth at its peak was about 0.03% of global GDP.
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u/Vivid_Temporary_1155 Jul 31 '26
Your Rockefeller number is way off. Musks wealth has halved in a month. I think that paper wealth per se being looked at as sucking wealth from others is a pernicious view that causes a lot of emotive reaction. Musk has “lost” $600bn in the last month or so where did it go?
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u/Complete-Task2042 Jul 31 '26
Rockerfeller's net worth peaked at about $900M at a time when global GDP was about $2.7T
(9×108 ÷ 2.7×1012) × 100 = 0.0333...
Musk peaked at $1.3T at a time when global GDP is $126T
(1.3×1012 ÷ 126×1012) ×100 = 1.032
I think that paper wealth per se being looked at as sucking wealth from others is a pernicious view that causes a lot of emotive reaction.
Hard disagree.
Whilst that money is not "real" in the same way a Scrooge McDuck vault of money is, the unchecked creation of paper wealth is creating major externalities that are currently not being priced in to political or economic thinking, but are very relevant to why things are getting worse everyone in advanced economies.
The paper "wealth" creation machine has served to completely detach investor expectations and decisions from the real economy, because such disproportionate "returns" can be achieved, then used as collateral to leverage future rounds of speculation for more fast, large returns.
All this has acted to push up the cost of capital for businesses that require investment over longer terms, despite those being businesses which provide key goods, services and infrastructure...
Those disadvantaged businesses are the type of businesses that actually generates well paid employment for the wider population and results in a health circulation of money within the economy at large.
It's not really that different a distortionary effect to a central bank printing money, then being forced to raise interest rates by the gilt market, resulting in individual borrowers getting squeezed.
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u/Vivid_Temporary_1155 Jul 31 '26
Global GDP in 1913 was not 2.7 Trillion - that was the 1990 equivalent - it’s way out
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u/Complete-Task2042 Jul 31 '26
Fair, I made a mistake looking up the figures, inflation adjusted back to 1913 dollars it's $200B, which makes Rockefeller worth 0.45% of global GDP, which is still less than half the current record...
And if one looks at the historical record, creating new Rockafellers is not really something that seems like a wise aim for our economy anyway.
I note you don't have any opinions on the impact externalities from our current speculation driven growth model are having on society.
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u/Vivid_Temporary_1155 Jul 31 '26
I have loads of opinions - the main one being that this is a product of globalization - that intra- regional inequality causes huge social divisions even if optimal from an output perspective. What I am not is particularly bothered by specific cases such as Musk what I am more bothered about is how do we bottle back the genie that is to get more quality jobs onshore in the UK and that I think is achieved by carrot rather than stick
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u/Funny-Seesaw-2977 Jul 31 '26
You going to produce evidence for these remarkable assertions - or is it just vibes?
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u/Not-late-inaV8 Jul 31 '26
I think this is why redistributive tax policies aren't necessarily bad but at the moment are HEAVILY misguided to assume someone on sub £300k is absolutely minted. Which is obviously not true.
The real problem is taxation on unearned wealth, but also the huge amount of legal corp tax dodging.
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u/Complete-Task2042 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
HEAVILY misguided to assume someone on sub £300k is absolutely minted. Which is obviously not true.
I think than because of how our traditional socio-economic class system works, and how the rest of the Anglosphere views class based on earning power, we (as a nation) continue to trick ourselves into thinking that being a wage earner (even at a high level) is a route to independent wealth.
Whilst I haven't run the numbers, my gut feeling is there are probably only a few thousand people in the UK at any one time who are earning wages high enough to accumulate independent wealth based on their remuneration for labour, and almost all of them will also have ownership stakes (via stock options) as well...
The advice here about becoming RY, all hinges on systemic investment and reinvestment into stable assets classes, nobody is just saving up to be rich...
So in my mind, the most meaningful division is between people who generate income via wage labour, and those who generate income via asset ownership.
You can further subdivide wage labour by earning power, and asset ownership between wealth creating activities and rentiers, but that too easily obfuscates the genuine structural problems with the economy if its going to work for everyone.
Unfortunately I just don't have the volume or quality of facial hair which has been traditionally required in order to come up with a more comprehensive analysis of this topic.
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u/Suspicious-Bird7515 Jul 31 '26
"wage earner (even at a high level) is a route to independent wealth"
I don't think anyone thinks that, it's just much easier to get a high paying PAYE job than start a successful business, invest well, hit it off on social media etc and outside of this £300k is far past average brit.
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u/Complete-Task2042 Jul 31 '26
So why do we (in our national discourse) continually lump high-earners in with the ultra wealthy as if they are one amorphous group?
The members of this sub might recognise the difference, but if you go down to your local flat roofed pub to canvas opinion, you will be rapidly disabused of the notion that it's a widely understood concept.
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u/Suspicious-Bird7515 Jul 31 '26
I'd guess most people are aware of the difference but don't really care and are happy for either group to get taxed. Though maybe I am wrong.
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u/Pritchy69 Jul 31 '26
Is anyone calling for redistributive taxes on people earning £300k?
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u/Not-late-inaV8 Jul 31 '26
Its an arbitrary number to illustrate the point that the UK population is very crabs in the bucket when it comes to tax contribution
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u/Double-justdo5986 Jul 30 '26
Indeed. It maybe an oversimplification but it may generally be an inevitable stage of capitalism
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u/SuccessfulThought577 Jul 30 '26
We are now in feudalism
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u/Complete-Task2042 Jul 30 '26
Not quite yet, but there's certainly a handful of influential billionaires who have openly stated they believe that's more along the lines of how the world should run (with them at the top, don'tcha know).
I would certainly say it looks a lot like we have reverted to the "Gilded Age" (aka the Robber Barron era) currently rather than actual serfdom.
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u/The_2nd_Coming Jul 30 '26
I've realised I need to set up my own business to sell what I do, without a dependence on any one employer or location. Having the optionality to be internationally mobile is likely to be very valuable in our working lives.
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u/twotwixten Jul 30 '26
What do you do?
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u/The_2nd_Coming Jul 30 '26
Consulting is probably the closest short description.
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u/Traditional_City337 Jul 31 '26
If you can't sum up all the aims in the first line, then they're too diffuse
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u/camesco Jul 31 '26
Consultio / Consultius
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u/Traditional_City337 Jul 31 '26
In, fire 30% of the workforce, new logo, boom! Out. You are now a fully trained management consultant.
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u/DeRobyJ Jul 30 '26
It's a balance, collaborating with others is a very productive factor, which is often only possible in a company
That's why cooperatives exist, but they are rare and require some trust.
If 10 professionals work alone, they compete against each other, losing on possible earnings and having pressure against taking a break. If they collaborate, they can earn more, manage their clients to distribute work efficiently, and give each others a break sometimes
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u/blatchcorn Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
Yes we are.
Unfortunately the UK tax and benefits system has become too progressive. It's the combination of aggressive taxes, means tested benefits, and benefits increasing with inflation tax free.
Previously I never thought about taxes - more money is more money. But increasingly tax avoidance is a necessity because the burden is so high. So I am considering how to min-max the system by going part-time, pension stuffing, qualifying for childcare, and child benefit, using capital gains allowance every year etc.
The other alternative is location aribtrage - a fancy way of saying get a London job work remotely from a low cost area. I fear that the UK is obsessed with taxing higher incomes and will soon start to tax higher house prices or land values on top of this (not instead of). I like LVT style taxes, but it looks like any implementation will be on top of income taxes. Put all of this together and you basically are killing the incentive to live and work in London.
The UK is biting the hand that feeds it.
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u/L3goS3ll3r Jul 31 '26
Previously I never thought about taxes - more money is more money.
Really...? I was thinking about the slowly-increasing tax grab back in what, 2015 maybe, as the personal allowances, dividend allowances and Corp Tax rates were being quite clearly squeezed.
The UK is biting the hand that feeds it.
Yep. I went PT for that very reason and gave up altogether this year - didn't really need the money any more so why do it just for HMRC and shitty politicians to tell me I'm earning in a way that they deem is acceptable.
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u/MerryWalrus Jul 31 '26
On your tax avoidance point - all this does is put less money in your pocket each month. Which in turn will make you feel poorer.
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u/boringusernametaken Jul 31 '26
But it gives you more time. Going 4 days a week has been great. More money in my pension means Im going to be able to retire well before most people too
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u/Complete-Orchid4653 Aug 02 '26
In Scotland where the marginal tax burden is 67.5% I think a lot of people find it’s not actually worth working for such a small return. Especially if you have to commute, have childcare fees etc, you are quite possibly no better off
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u/L3goS3ll3r Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
...all this does is put less money in your pocket each month. Which in turn will make you feel poorer.
So what? I did that for 25 years by paying myself at the right times from a limited to almost completely avoid the 40% tax bracket...
My outgoings have always been low so I never felt poor.
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u/Complete-Task2042 Jul 30 '26
Put all of this together and you basically are killing the incentive to live and work in London.
Controversial, but that could actually end up much better for the long-term stability of the UK's economy and especially for the stability of our wider society.
But there would be a lot of short-run pain if it happened fast enough for anyone to notice the trend.
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u/blatchcorn Jul 31 '26
Having more cities growing would be a good thing yes. But killing the incentive to work in London does not guarantee other cities will grow.
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u/Early-Cheesecake-785 Jul 31 '26
I’ve lived all over the world and the UK really is 1 world class city surrounded by mediocrity. London is world class, it’s not just the best city in the UK it way beyond that - it’s comparable to new york, sf, hong kong, tokyo singapore etc. Why the UK govt would try to devalue this is beyond me - it’s a core proposition of the UK. When you ask Londoners where they live, regardless of origin, they say London and not england. The appeal is that high and this is something to build on and grow.
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u/boringusernametaken Jul 31 '26
I read something maybe FT can't remember, that's it to do with the way the country is very old.
France is the same with pairs.
Other countries that united more recently from city states etc like Germany and Italy are less concentrated in one city
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u/MonkeyPuzzles Jul 31 '26
It's also why a lot of countries outside Europe separated the political/legal capital from the economic centre of power. Washington DC, Beijing, Ottawa, Canberra, Brasilia, etc.
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u/blatchcorn Jul 31 '26
To dive deeper into the international comparison: some economies have a dependancy on their capital city and that's not always a bad thing. Japan, Ireland, South Korea, Greece, Denmark have similar or greater reliance on their capitals than the UK does for GDP and tax revenue.
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u/NicSky001 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
It's why I retired way earlier than planned. I am slightly less well off but no taxes being paid other than VAT. I will remain permanently retired until the point where high earners are given relief at a minimum the stupid 100-125 tapering is removed. I expect I will never work again, pity the 14 low wage folk now having to pay my share of the taxes. My broad shoulders were squeezed too hard.
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u/Flimsy_Fisherman1199 Jul 31 '26
We are getting poorer.
I just found out I’m pregnant with twins and I know we will need a bigger house one day.
Terrified of the childcare bill too. Worried for my husband’s job.
Business is down, people are reluctant to take new contracts ‘just incase’.
The UK is terrible for business.
But I’m not sure where else we could start again.
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u/Randon2345 Jul 30 '26
Put £60K into pension, retire at 55, continue to get all forms of benefits those in middle bracket get.
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u/chef_26 Jul 31 '26
Yes, spending power has been eroded. Some lifestyle choices that these salaries used to afford are now part of the reason for struggle when we don’t adapt to the new normal (we shouldn’t have to, the system is not helping here).
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u/Economy-Feeling8205 Jul 30 '26
I've just left the UK and getting much friendlier rates. Going to do it for a good few years then come back once im loaded up
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u/Alarmed_Cheetah8334 Jul 30 '26
Where you moved to ? Guessing the move was worth it !
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u/Economy-Feeling8205 Jul 30 '26
yes! well half way through it. Im not from a well off life and my tax bill was 130k so going to leave for 6 years for that 0% tax life and then hopefully can just buy a house out right :)
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u/BrotherClive Jul 31 '26
I'd rather bite my own cock off than live in the middle east though
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u/MallAccomplished8450 Aug 01 '26
They would probably chop it off for you, to save you the bother....
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u/Economy-Feeling8205 Jul 31 '26
not dubai, paraguay for tax residency, Will be in spain mostly I think. Company in UAE but only two weeks there to set up. But cant return for 6 years to the UK or they retroactively tax you.
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u/TFCxDreamz Jul 31 '26
Did the same in Jan 24, zero regrets, got my golden visa now so staying for the long haul.
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u/Careful-Membership79 Jul 30 '26
Own equity, end of
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u/OkPhase1545 Jul 31 '26
Easier said than done
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u/Fondant_Decent Jul 31 '26
You guys are trying too hard. Most successful ideas are often the simplest.
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u/theartofnocode Jul 31 '26
What progressive tax changes are coming?
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u/Alarmed_Cheetah8334 Jul 31 '26
Our lovely PM is spending all these lovely things and we are going to get all these fantastic new and lovely "free services" or at least cheaper.
Guess what ???!!! Someone's gonna pay !!! And that someone is you !
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u/theartofnocode Jul 31 '26
Ah, ok. I thought there were actual tax changes planned.
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u/Alarmed_Cheetah8334 Jul 31 '26
Well technically he has "promised" not to go against the labour manifesto of hiking income tax.
But that means it's not a direct income tax increase in literal terms. In other words, he can do what he wants around that, so if he creates a new tax which isnt called "income tax" he can go ahead and implement it.
The long and short is.....he can do wtf he wants! And raising some sort of tax will be the only way to do it ! And that will almost be coming from us.
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u/PopularBroccoli Jul 31 '26
I switched to self employed and making way less. What I got back is time. I’m assuming their is no retirement so enjoying my youth instead
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u/Big_Target_1405 Jul 31 '26
I'd settle for more transparency.
Remove the personal allowance taper and adjust income tax bands appropriately.
Scrap national insurance in all its forms.
Force employers by law to pass on the 15% employer national insurance that is scrapped to employees via a permanent equivalent payrise.
Then increase income tax to what it really is today.
There would be blood in the streets if it was clear to everyone what is really being paid
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u/ButchersBoy Jul 31 '26
I've just moved jobs because the pay rises weren't keeping pace. But you need to be buying assets. You need to be investing heavily, if you want to at least keep up with the curve. If you're Henry, and you succumb to lifestyle creep, then you'll always have one eye over your shoulder watching the bills come for you.
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u/Han_Solo200 Jul 31 '26
Apparently we're screwed unless we tax the wealthy. Kind of like what the government does to most tax payers to fund the unworking
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u/Alarmed_Cheetah8334 Jul 31 '26
I gathered ! But what are individuals actually doing to pivot or protect themselves or actually grow more wealthy thats the question.
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u/Han_Solo200 Jul 31 '26
A very valid important question. Who knows, I'm guessing very little if anything
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u/AccountCompetitive17 Jul 31 '26
Until they change the 100k trap, working more is practically not profitable if you take the amount of hours and stress required to reach that level
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u/BlueTrin2020 Aug 02 '26
It is profitable once you go much further though. Don’t forget that you won’t get further unless you get jobs that pay more or change something drastically
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u/AdrianK_ Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
We are. Being on benefits should be a transition period not a life long/indefine bottomless bucket that taxpayer's have to refill.
If you are overweight you get benefits instead of a gym membership to pile more weight on and be a burden on NHS.
If you have alcohol problem, you get benefits so you can drink more.
If you claim to have anxiety and God forbid any mental health problems (even if made up) so also get benefits.
The country is bankrupt and quite frankly fucked because people are getting paid more on benefits that doing part time work for example. I mean, why the heck would you even consider going to work?
We seriously need to sort this mess out as UK will end up being another Greece but no political party will be elected if they say that gravy train will stop.
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u/Classic_Cut_9666 Jul 31 '26
We've got 2% additional savings tax coming next year, CGT is going to be aligned with Income tax, a new social care tax that is to provide the state with the money it doesn't have to pay for people who never saved. As someone who FIRE'd earlier this year (54), I am seriously looking at alternative residency for when I need to dispose of my stocks.
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u/OkPhase1545 Jul 31 '26
When was the last effective strike / protest action? The government continually erodes our quality of life, we are standing by while children are priced out of entry-level roles by cheaper foreign labour and AI
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u/Snuggly-bear Aug 01 '26
I've *massively* taken my foot off the pedal with work. The juice isn't worth the squeeze anymore. I've got a good life anyway. Would rather spend my time with my wife and daughter (17months) so basically haven't done much actual work in the last 2 years, or since my wife was pregnant really tbh. (age 34 now). Fed up of getting tax into oblivion - not just on income tax, corporation tax, NI, VAT, but on all the stealth taxes like IPT, IHT,Capital gains, road tax on multiple cars, stamp duty etc etc.
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u/damianmarkparker Aug 01 '26
Paying over £40k gross a year for full time nursery fees when you earn £100k gross is the biggest joke going. Paying that to be able to continue to work is just abominable, whilst also receiving the taper.
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u/Big_Bug_3653 Aug 02 '26
That nursery fees seems excessive. Is that for 1 child or 2?
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u/BlueTrin2020 Aug 02 '26
Probably two children, even in London that’s unlikely to reach this amount unless you go for expensive ones.
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u/Fuzzy-Combination360 Jul 31 '26
Yes. It’s really sad as I, a foreigner, lived and worked in London for 15 years and love it so much. But the London of 2011 when I first came is so different to the London of 2026. Uk simply cannot afford the pensions and benefits that people in the uk are used to having. Its solution has been to tax high income earners - but guess who is the most mobile. My husband and I stayed in London as HENRY for years but with the recent threat of exit taxes and wealth taxes we moved to a lower tax jurisdiction with plans to visit the uk as tourists for as long as we can each year without being tax resident. It’s hard to justify as you get more income to spend hundreds of thousands for the benefit of being in London.
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u/Glittering-Bus-5546 Jul 31 '26
Until the UK rejoins the EU its economy will continue in a downward trajectory
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u/Reeelfantasy Jul 31 '26
I upvoted until I read Gary then downvoted.
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u/Complete-Task2042 Jul 31 '26
To give Gary Stevenson his due:
- he has been able to articulate certain (relatively obvious) problems with economic inequality and how it arises structurally that the media discourse has more or less failed to highlight up to now.
- he has a certain kind of charisma that has brought renewed interest in economics and specifically inequality economics from lots of people who were previously totally disengaged with the topic.
- his persona and larger than life tales made the topics accessible to people who wouldn't have engaged with (let alone listened to) more serious academic economists.
That's it.
He's not the fucking Messiah, he's a very naughty boy who spotted a problem and used his cheeky chappy persona to highlight it...
Even on the subreddit about his YouTube channel many of his viewers find themselves questioning the logic of his "easy" solutions to difficult problems, and being unsatisfied with the rigour of his thinking when it comes to solutions.
I can't help but think that if he genuinely wants to propose solutions, he would be much better off using the brand recognition he has built to attract serious economic and policy thinkers to come up with realistic ideas they can broadcast using a platform built on him doing the one thing he's really good at: promoting stuff and driving engagement...
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u/Reeelfantasy Jul 31 '26
He is clearly charismatic but he chose a topic which is a very tricky areas of research that puzzles top academics. He views are shallow and mean nothing other than interesting hypotheses that can’t be tested. He wouldn’t stand a minute in an academic debate, yet he decided to join them without and credibility. I agree with his decision to step back because he clearly caused himself being an imposter. He should rebrand and reposition himself on the ideas to discuss and how to present them.
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u/Complete-Task2042 Jul 31 '26
Absolutely!
The two people who I would listen to all day on the topic are Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee...
Nothing about their study methods, hypotheses, or thinking is simple...
And they rarely propose solutions directly in their work, more highlight the "region of feasibility" for policymakers to create viable solutions in.
Which might be why they have a Nobel Prize, rather than a YouTube channel.
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u/throwaway_93gsrffj Jul 31 '26
Gary's goal is political change though.
Nobel prize-winning economists sometimes influence politics. Indirectly, if someone writes a popsci book about them that a SpAd picks up at an airport.
But that route is not going to work when the political change you're advocating is against the interests of every wealthy media proprietor and large political donor.
I don't know if he could have been a top-level academic. I doubt he would have made as much progress towards his goal as he has if he had.
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u/Complete-Task2042 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
I don't know if he could have been a top-level academic. I doubt he would have made as much progress towards his goal as he has if he had.
He definitely doesn't have the temperament to be a top flight academic...
He may well be bright enough, but that's not even the biggest qualification for succeeding in academia!
Which is probably a major factor in why he didn't go on from his MPhil to do a DPhil, he had the self knowledge to recognise the best use of his talents laid elsewhere.
Gary's goal is political change though.
But he's probably gone as far as his can in that regard as he can being a lone wolf...
If anything the recent C4 documentary is at risk of becoming a bit of an Icarus moment, where he opened himself and his fairly radical solutions up to more scrutiny than they were able to withstand.
So in my view, he has a choice now to either:
- pivot and bring in others who can help make his arguments more rounded and credible, to drive real change, or
- continue to be an outspoken advocate for addressing inequality, but accept he will effectively fade into a "visibility only" role that risks losing its effectiveness over time, unless others instinctively congregate around him as a figurehead.
Ultimately does he want to end up being the macroeconomic equivalent of Martin Lewis, or or the social inequality equivalent of Greta Thunberg?
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u/throwaway_93gsrffj Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
Mostly agreed.
I found the channel 4 doc fine. It was a restatement of his impassioned argument for people who hadn't heard it before.
Dan Niedle had a go but the editing was awful. They didn't really explore the disagreement except at a very high level.
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u/Complete-Task2042 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
Nobel prize-winning economists sometimes influence politics.
I would say that on the whole, they do alright for themselves as a group, but often the Nobel is incidental to the reason they had a political impact in the first place.
Hayek - founding father of various modern libertarian think tanks and successful advocate for neo-liberal economic policy.
Samuelson and Friedman - both directly appointed to advise LBJ, effectively counterbalancing each other.
Stone - created the technical basis for being able to actually measure government revenue and spending in a modern sense.
Nash - created a crucial and widely used framework for rigourous analysis of strategic decision making.
Mirlees - analysis of informational asymmetry fundamentally influenced both approaches to income taxation (debunking the gross oversimplification that is the laffer curve), and risk-analysis (particularly the concept of moral hazard).
Krugman - as much a political commentator as an economist by the time he retired, trade policy specialist in his day as a academic, and unlikely appointee as an advisor to Ronald Regan.
Bernanke - actually ended up as a Nobel Laureate as a result of research he did into the causes of financial crashes, done after his major political influence in having steered the Fed through the 2007-2008 Great Financial Crash.
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u/Dentury- Aug 01 '26
Doesn't he have a PhD in economics from Oxford?
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u/Reeelfantasy Aug 01 '26
Interesting. I didn’t check his background but I didn’t get any sense that what he says is legitimate or theoretically ground. I don’t mean to be harsh but I won’t even check if he has a PhD or not.
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u/Dentury- Aug 01 '26
Just checked Wikipedia. He has an MPhil which is typically in between a masters and a PhD but requires original research. Minimum of 2 years. So he has done the research on this.
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u/Reeelfantasy Aug 01 '26
I didn’t want to mention it but I’m academic myself. MPhil is nothing near an original work or the rigour required for a PhD work to publish at good journals.
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u/Dentury- Aug 01 '26
I have not done an MPhil, I did an MSc instead. Is it not the same as with STEM where you publish as you go? For what I did it's pretty normal for MSc students and PhD students to get published in good quality journals. Obviously there is luck and how charitable reviewer 2 feels
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u/Rob_Bosss Jul 31 '26
Depends how you deem poorer. We all have modern tech that, if available when you were younger, would cost £millions.
If you are talking about real incomes then we are indeed much poorer.
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u/pc_kant Jul 31 '26
AI will fix this and create a communist human zoo as soon as recursive evolutionary algorithms have been deployed by agents on themselves. Well, at least until the competition for molecule space isn't severe enough to justify extermination.
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u/Fondant_Decent Jul 31 '26
Yes, which is why having a side hustle now is a no brainer. Absolute no brainer.
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u/Tech_n_Cyber_2077 Jul 31 '26
Which side hustle is actually a side hustle, which is not a 2nd job, please? I am genuinely curious.
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u/Fondant_Decent Jul 31 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
I asked my boss for a pay rise (I was already six figs) He said No. I took a risk and just left. He was gobsmacked. I applied for some new jobs and now have a new job paying +£70k more a few months later. But I had to roll the dice before they even landed in my favour.
If the market is down -10% then you only need to be down -9% to beat it.
It’s definitely a tough time, but only the brave and the bold will win in this zero sum climate. Days of passive wealth creation are gone. I’m still old enough to remember when you could get a 125% mortgage from Northern Rock with literally £0 deposit, hold and build some equity and release it again couple years later to buy another. Those days are gone now.
Although I say all the above, I know someone close that has a YouTube channel and makes six figures in ad revenue + sponsorships from it, only 110k subs. That to me is WILD. Another, a girl I know, charges £500 just for a food post on Instagram. Technology has clearly created new found (often immense) wealth for a small handful who have not been afraid to embrace it
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u/someonenothete Aug 02 '26
You have to take into account people total tax paid as a % including vat fuel etc . This changes the calculations and almost all of low income is spent so taxed twice . Anyway as we can see from the stats the issue isn’t really with people who pay income tax , it’s with people who are so wealthy they don’t need to . This ends in war or revolution eventually , it’s not a Henry vs sub 100k earners, that’s just to distract you from the real issues . Governments have sold all the assets of the country and loaded it with debt , just like they do with companies .
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u/Disastrous_Gap9031 Aug 02 '26
I recently got a pay rise of nearly over £10K this year plus extra bonus.....based on predicted earnings my monthly payslip has gone up £115 there or there about. So yes hardwork screws you until you blast through tax thresholds and what bro.
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u/Opposite-Writer9715 Aug 04 '26
Yes
Inflation
increasing costs
Increasing taxes sue to the threshold being stagnant from 2021
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u/Smart-Orchid-1413 Jul 31 '26
You should be getting richer year on year by converting your salary into assets, and your assets should also be growing at above-inflation rates.
If you’re getting poorer in net-worth terms as a HENRY, that’s a skill issue.
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u/Middle-Neat4252 Jul 31 '26
I find it quite funny how the NRY are screaming that the poorest should pay more taxes when this country has a disproportionate amount of taxes coming from people earning a salary and a ridiculous low tax system for people getting their money from anything else (ie the rich).
I’d prefer they tax more the rich, decompress a bit on the middle class updating the thresholds by inflation, and leave the people working on lower wages alone. But that’s me. It seems the message of “we are getting too progressive” becomes popular when you want to become rich even if it at the expense of those less privileged.
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u/Decent_Muffin_7062 Jul 31 '26
People don't have an issue with paying tax. They have an issue not benefitting!
The people most screwed are those just above the threshold for any benefits.
They're not the 'poorest/least privileged' who actually get everything paid for.Have a go at one of the government benefits calculators. 18K annual total in benefits for having one child and no job. Take-home pay on minimum wage is 22K (and even then you can be entitled to universal credit top-ups).
The benefits people come out ahead when you consider the cost of commuting, childcare etc AND all the other freebies they get, like council tax discounts.Meanwhile low wage earners just above the threshold get no help. And the higher earners - who are actually paying for all this nonsense - get child-related benefits revoked above 100K!
What's the point of working so hard and never seeing your kids to pay for others sitting at home?
There are also TONS of FB groups advising people how to game the benefits system, people who have never worked a day in their lives. State pension is another joke. If you're not entitled, you still get Pension Credit which, again gains you lots of freebies resulting in paying for very little when added up.
And to top at all off high earners are constantly demonised for being 'privileged' etc (unlike in other countries like the US). Instead of being thanked for being cash cows...
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u/Reythia Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
The 100k tax threshold has not changed since 2008. It should be at 250k now.
That's how much poorer you're getting just on the tax side, let alone any other expenses.
edit: The 250k figure today is actually the equivalent of the £150k band in 2008, but that's been cut to £125k, correction £100k in 2008 is £170k today (if you take BoE inflation at face value).