Poll: Do people really need $100,000/£100,000 a year salleries?

[adderseal]

No, we don't need them. But if someone offered you it would you turn it down? Of course not!
This proportional representation of money to job would never work, ever. Things like professional sports would die, you'd get a complete imbalance of the economy as bricklayers and plumbers (or teachers and principals, or whatever floats your boat) fight to see who's more important. Thus the West comes crashing down.
Big salaries are great if they're ending up in your bank account. For everybody saying 'it's not fair they do nothing and earn millions etc etc': it's pure and simple jealousy.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I'm gonna admit early on I've got no economics education.

But, when you see that there's people sitting on over $50 billion, and yet there's widespread poverty, in 'civilised' countries, not just the third world, there's something fucked either with humanity or capitalism. Really, when you hit $10 billion, what drives you to keep sucking more cash out of the finite amount in the worldwide system?

It's like the fat guy who's on the chat shows at 700lb having a wall cut out of his home to be taken to hospital. When he weighed himself and he was say, 400lb, did he not think, "whoa, time to lay off the donuts!"?

$100,000 may be a little low, and of course you've got to allow for investment in business, (after all what could go wrong with investment banking huh?) but seriously, no-one needs more than $1 million a year, even to live excessively.

To me, the line that needs to be drawn comes between 'Woo! I'm so rich I can take a month off work,fly round the world first class and do almost anything and not worry about money!' and 'Dammit I know someone who earned $48 million last year and I only earned $43.5 million, I must set my teams of accountants to cutting employee benefits to make my numbers look more impressive! Else I can't look smug at the parties I go to.' It's between enjoying life and watching numbers or your position on rich lists.

Also, at the extreme, everything rests on the people at the bottom. The better they're taken care of, the better everything else works. It also showed in a survey, that the happiest nations were those with the smallest gaps between rich n poor, not simply the richest nations.

 

[danintexas]

My father earned roughly $185k a year (US) when I was growing up. He also worked his ass off and saved half of every dollar he earned. Would spend weeks at a time overseas in not nice areas of the world where he would have body guards with him. We would see him 1 day a week if we were lucky when he did work state side. My mother didn't work and stayed home with us kids raising us.

He has worked his ass off for his money and now lives in retirement in a modest paid off house driving a 1992 Toyota Corolla he bought new 19 years ago. He is worth millions but only because he saved and worked hard in his life. If anyone had the balls to tell me to my face my father didn't deserve that money I would literally punch them in the fuckin nose.

On the flip side I have a friend who is worth two times what my father is and has never worked a job in his life. At 32 years old he owns 5 cars - 3 houses and continues to live off his fathers money. IMO - That is wrong - but at the same time I put the blame on his father for raising a nobody that will never accomplish anything in his life.

 

[Wolfenbarg]

Do people really need it? No, of course not. However, do they deserve it? Absolutely. Try to remember that human beings are incentive based creatures. What's the point of going to school for years and putting every hour into your career if at the end of the day, you'll be no better off than you would be working a job in secondary labor? Unless your job is your first love, that would turn way too many people off of professional work. We can already see it with doctors that don't make as much money in the public sector. Many UK public sector doctors aren't local simply because they can make more working elsewhere or working private.

People loathe to hear this argument, but there's a reason that there are no talented CEOs in huge companies that aren't making millions of dollars. It's all about incentive.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

They can. It depends on what they do. Inventor? Definitely. CEO? Arguable. Sports star? No.

 

[F'Angus]

Well no but I'd still accept one

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

100k seems to be an amount that will let you be comfortable but not excessively rich.

i dont think money changes you, it just allows you to be who you really are.

Science says otherwise. The current thinking is as your wage increases you enter into different societal groups based on your income (i.e. richer areas of cities or whatever) and become exposed to their habits. The part of you that wants to fit it wants the things they have, or better just to present dominance over them, so that you can increase your standing.

The more money you get the more retarded bullshit you'll piss it away on just to show how awesome you are.

As an accountant, I'm expected to start a salary at about 50-70K a year, depending on where I'm hired and work load. I'm still buying a rural house when I'm young, I'm still holding my friends dear to me. I'm just shoving ALOT of money away in the bank instead of flaunting it

 

[danintexas]

My father earned roughly $185k a year (US) when I was growing up. He also worked his ass off and saved half of every dollar he earned. Would spend weeks at a time overseas in not nice areas of the world where he would have body guards with him. We would see him 1 day a week if we were lucky when he did work state side. My mother didn't work and stayed home with us kids raising us.

He has worked his ass off for his money and now lives in retirement in a modest paid off house driving a 1992 Toyota Corolla he bought new 19 years ago. He is worth millions but only because he saved and worked hard in his life. If anyone had the balls to tell me to my face my father didn't deserve that money I would literally punch them in the fuckin nose.

On the flip side I have a friend who is worth two times what my father is and has never worked a job in his life. At 32 years old he owns 5 cars - 3 houses and continues to live off his fathers money. IMO - That is wrong - but at the same time I put the blame on his father for raising a nobody that will never accomplish anything in his life.

How much of the money does he use for good causes? AKA helping out friends, family members, donating to charities?

It is the only thing he ever spends his money on honestly. He never buys anything for himself and spends his money on family and friends. He never buys anything for himself. Looking at him you would think he was poor. Driving a 19 year old car wearing 10 year old jeans. But at the same time he could pull out a check book and buy a house out right. To be fair I realize he is unique - you don't get to many folks like him.

 

[DesiPrinceX09]

If you have worked your tail off to get your pay up to that much then yeah you deserve it. The amount of work you do should be directly proportional to the amount of compensation you get; lazy work deserves little pay (or should) and hard work (should) deserve more pay. Though I really don't think that being good at bouncing/kicking/hitting/throwing a ball deserves to be compensated with millions of dollars. What happened to those days when teachers were admired and treasured by society?

 

[Wolfenbarg]

They can. It depends on what they do. Inventor? Definitely. CEO? Arguable. Sports star? No.

I don't think you seem to understand why sports stars make as much as they do. Professional arenas of any field ratchet up the pay according to talent. Do you think we'd have people breaking home run records in a way that 20's era baseball players would never believe if we weren't offering massive contracts to them? Of course not. Not to mention that sports games attract thousands of fans and millions of dollars, if the players aren't getting a share of that, that is absolutely criminal, and they would strike until they started seeing a fair share of the booty. Is a doctor going to draw thousands of people into one place and make them empty their pockets? How about a lawyer? Or an inventor? People want to see sports stars, so they absolutely deserve to make every penny they get.

Also, we're talking about a profession where most players get a few years of playtime and then they're out for good. For most players, they won't make nearly enough to be able to live comfortably for the rest of their lives, they get thrown out on the street with no skills for the workplace.

 

[probunk]

Neeed? Unlikely. They're entitled to receive it if someone is willing to give it, however.

 

[Mr Binary]

I think they deserve the salary if they have a good job and worked hard for it.

 

[poppabaggins]

100k seems to be an amount that will let you be comfortable but not excessively rich.

i dont think money changes you, it just allows you to be who you really are.

Science says otherwise. The current thinking is as your wage increases you enter into different societal groups based on your income (i.e. richer areas of cities or whatever) and become exposed to their habits. The part of you that wants to fit it wants the things they have, or better just to present dominance over them, so that you can increase your standing.

The more money you get the more retarded bullshit you'll piss it away on just to show how awesome you are.

Observation of how people act upon acquiring money in no way implies scientific proof (or even strong evidence). It only implies correlation. Furthermore, sociology is basically glorified philosophy and can really only provide strong correlations at most and is not able to provide a true cause/effect relationship.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

The question of "necessity" is a tricky thing. If one simply looks at the basic cost of "living" (that is, housing, food, transportation and other miscellaneous expenses necessary to survival), they find that, in some places, the answer is yes. For example, if I earned 100k USD in my current city of residence (Austin, Texas), I would have to make ~ 230k USD to maintain my same standard of living in Manhattan. Thus the answer of necessity is "maybe".

To the greater implied question of "does someone deserve such a salary?", well that depends entirely upon your own personal philosophical outlook regarding work, ownership, rewards, social obligations and the like. Does one person living in Austin really "need" more money than some other person? Nope. But if one person has expended tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars on an education not to mention years of their life dedicated to learning the intricacies of some profession and the leverage these things into a field where they work very hard, I'm inclined to believe they "deserve" a higher wage than someone who is employed in a field that any person is qualified for.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

They can. It depends on what they do. Inventor? Definitely. CEO? Arguable. Sports star? No.

I don't think you seem to understand why sports stars make as much as they do. Professional arenas of any field ratchet up the pay according to talent. Do you think we'd have people breaking home run records in a way that 20's era baseball players would never believe if we weren't offering massive contracts to them? Of course not. Not to mention that sports games attract thousands of fans and millions of dollars, if the players aren't getting a share of that, that is absolutely criminal, and they would strike until they started seeing a fair share of the booty. Is a doctor going to draw thousands of people into one place and make them empty their pockets? How about a lawyer? Or an inventor? People want to see sports stars, so they absolutely deserve to make every penny they get.

Also, we're talking about a profession where most players get a few years of playtime and then they're out for good. For most players, they won't make nearly enough to be able to live comfortably for the rest of their lives, they get thrown out on the street with no skills for the workplace.

Sorry, I have this thing where I hate professional sports and would rather see the concept disappear than having people like that make that kind of money.

 

[Dragonborne88]

Reading these make me feel so small and insignificant with my petty $31,000 a year. Way to make me feel poor guys.

 

[Semitendon]

It's 10x the average salary where I come from. Actually 10,000 $ is pretty well above average and prices are higher. Yes people you can live with 10k $ a year and still have plenty. I know I am and in a family of four.

Then you can't possibly be from America.

Most teenagers in America are capable of making 10K a year. Consider that minimum wage is 7.25$, a full time job at that rate is going to put you at about 14K a year. Minus taxes, you'd be clearing around 10K.

Assuming that the "family of four" is two adults and two children, That would require either, only one of the adults is working, or they both work part time. In America, such a situation would require welfare ( government aid) which means that the "family" would actually be a financial drain on the community they live in.

To the OP, the exchange rate creates a huge difference in pounds versus USD, I can only speak to the USD, being as I live in America.

100K in America doesn't go very far. ( at least, not the part of America I live in, and other areas are far worse than where I live)

Most families in my area, one adult makes 100K, or combined salaries make close to 100K. Any famly making less is at risk of financial difficulty or collapse.

It seems to me that 100K is enough to provide for a family with little financial struggle.

Essentially, 100K is a relative foundation for determining financial security in this area of America. So yes, absolutely, people need 100K.