Stuck in the middle with you.

[andrewducker]

Interesting piece here on people's views on poverty.

The most interesting thing being what people's views tell you about the way they view the world.

The majority of them, in this case, believing that they are in the middle - that they are 'normal'.

Which rings true with my experience talking about this with people - where nearly everyone from my just-about-employed-in-a-crap-job ex-student friends to my earning-in-the-top-5%-in-the-finance-sector friends believes that they are within the middle of the block - they aren't _that_ rich or _that_ poor, just a little bit out from the average.

I mean, I'm on 50% more than the UK median income (which is £450 a week), and _I_ feel normal.

The other interesting bit is that people feel that those above them must have earned it, while those beneath them are just lazy.  Which also rings true - after all, if _I_ can get this far, then anyone who put in a bit of effort could do it?  The answer, obviously, being no, but that doesn't match with human intuition.

Which means that if you want to get people motivated to help the poor then you need to make it very clear where people actually fall on the spectrum of income.

Which reminds me - anyone got a graph showing how much (working age) people in the UK earn?  Or some figures I could turn into a graph?

Comments

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

I think that it's also driven by the whole "spending expands to fill (or slightly exceed) the money available" thing. Intellectually, I know that I'm in the top 10% of earners in the UK, but I'm still skint all the time; when I'd just graduated and was earning just over a quarter of what I'm on now, I was still skint all the time, but I was getting by. As far as I can tell the only significant change to my quality of life is that I go out to eat more often and at better restaurants. This is quite possibly a sign that I should be giving a lot more of my money to charity.

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

exactly - I feel that if I earned more, I'd just find more expensive beer to drink.

[natural20.livejournal.com]

Is that £450 before or after tax, btw?

[andrewducker]

Before, I believe.

[red-phil.livejournal.com]

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/Product.asp?vlnk=15187

[communicator.livejournal.com]

God, I'm the exact opposite. I believe I'm bloody lucky and well off, and that people with less than me are hard done by, while people who earn more than me are over-privileged bastards :-)

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

I know 2 things

1) I earn something like 4-5X average.
2) I am not on the same continent as rich. (by observation).

I *should* feel rich. I have a fair wack of savings/investments and no major obligatory expenditure. I don't.

[andrewducker]

Poll just went up, just for you :->

And of course you don't feel rich - you just raised your expectations...

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

weird, innit?

I still can't 'retire' - I suppose that's my standard.

And your poll still gave me no option which fitted me :-).

[red-phil.livejournal.com]

Yeah, 'Rich' is 'I can afford to do what I want within sensible limits and STILL don't need to work'

[aliiis.livejournal.com]

people feel that those above them must have earned it, while those beneath them are just lazy

Wow, that is pretty much the exact opposite of what I believe, but you'd probably expect me to say that, being a radical and all. (Also tee hee I feel exactly like that tag on Wikipedia, you know whenever it says 'some believe' or whatever, and someone's flagged it up with a little [who?])

[matgb]

Exactly. Most people think they, their friends and their upbringing is 'normal'

When I was at Exeter as a mature student, virtually everyone there thought they were from either 'normal' or 'poor' backgrounds. Including those paying the full means tested tuition fees, and those that thought the minimum wage a waste of time as "no one earns that little". SRSLY.

In the 'proper' job I had before leaving Devon, I earnt a reasonably good wage compared to many friends, but still had money troubles--now we've got much more serious money troubles but we're happier, partially due to cost of living being about half what it was.

I keep meaning to do some research/write up the "assumption of normality" that most of us live in--especially true in an era where housing is segregated according to wealth--kids don't mix as much with people of substantially different income backgrounds, etc.