The upper-middle class poverty line

[denny]

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article1719509.ece

The author borders on insufferably self-involved, but the core point is worth discussing... I know plenty of fairly 'well paid' professionals, mostly geeks, who are living in grotty shared housing and/or still sliding into debt. Why? Because housing is so stupidly expensive that just 'well paid' isn't enough any more... if you want to live 'comfortably' in London, you either have to be paid in the sort of brackets the financial sector waves around, or you simply don't make the grade.

I'm bemused by the article's conclusion that this is all due to 'globalisation'. I'd have pinned the blame squarely on a combination of city bonuses driving the housing prices in London up at a stupid rate, and buy-to-fucking-rent doing the same thing across the whole country (albeit somewhat more slowly).

If you can't afford to rent or buy somewhere halfway nice to live, everything else you can do about your quality of life is pretty much window-dressing.

Discuss?

Comments

[deerfold.livejournal.com]

Wow, those schools are expensive. And I speak as someone who went to a Private school. My parents were a part-time teacher and a greengrocer - but this was back in the days of assisted places - about a fifth of the people in my year were there based on intelligence/exam-passing alone with no regard to the earnings of their parents.

For some years I have earned far more than my dad ever earned. I'm earning a little under the national average wage and quite a bit under the London average. My girlfriend earns what I would have considered to be a fortune just a few years ago. We can't even think of buying somewhere in London to live. We're being outbid on 2-bedroom flats and we're nearly in Bedfordshire. In a few years we'll move North and become part of the problem of pricing locals out of their houses up there. My gf's lucky - they're keen to relocate Civil Servants up North; most people don't have the option as the work is down here - I'll probably have to take a severe pay cut when we go.

[deerfold.livejournal.com]

And I speak as my girlfriend is a professional. And I, erm should be. Getting closer from an odd angle at the moment.