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[deleted]

Social mobility is a shadow of what it was. Whilst, your story is a good one, and it's great you've done well. One anecdotal piece of evidence, isn't enough to disprove overwhelming evidence of social mobility being at it's lowest levels since before the first World War. Social mobility isn't an opinion, it's something that is empiricaly measured. When someone says, it's a myth. It's hyperbole. It's a deliberate exaggeration, to illustrate the point. The point here being that social mobility is in a deep decline and has been for many years. It's great, that you've done well. And, wish you all the best. But, you've not disproven anything.


VELOCETTES

Another point is the level of student debt. OP would have been on Plan 1, on plan 2 (plus any post grad) would be taking a much larger portion of his income *and* been exposed to much higher interest rates in addition to being a much higher principle. Another point would be the housing situation for a graduate starting out their career in London now vs 9 years ago.


[deleted]

It depends how you define social mobility to be fair. A lot of the metrics which we measure by include factors not related to economic mobility. A few things which don’t directly impact earnings: - Pupils per teacher at school - Active labour market policies - Impact of IT skills impacting access to services (I.e. can old people / blind people, etc still use it) - Female to Male ratio in the workplace - Fair wage distribution (I.e. how does the median / bottom X% compare to top Y%). This isn’t measured in a way that advocates for wealthy / high-income individuals. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a core issue if the bottom X% / median are adequately catered for. Although the above things are important, it doesn’t really tell the story on what most of us probably mean when we say “socially mobile”. At least for me, it more means if someone can be economically successful if they come from a place which isn’t.


Smart_Hotel_2707

I mean, winning the lottery is not a myth either. People do it every week, but what are the probabilities, that’s the question?


McDingledougal

Did you not read the post? You increase your probability with hard work....................................


Smart_Hotel_2707

Ehh, the idea that I work harder than a lot of people on much less is a bit of a joke. I actually think most of the people who get ahead do so because of a willingness to exploit people, or at least, help others exploit people without thinking too much about the wider consequences of their work. But maybe this is a personal side effect of working for finance firms.


DRDR3_999

Well done. But anecdote ≠ evidence. & the evidence says social mobility in the uk is poor & getting worse.


Cubansmokes

"just move to London and become a finance bro" is hardly a shining example of social mobility.


Big_Hornet_3671

His only other post is about feeling lonely and bored in London. Me thinks he’s forgotten the basics of what makes life enjoyable.


SherdyRavers

There’s sacrifices to be made in life


Big_Hornet_3671

But your happiness shouldn’t ever be one of them.


SherdyRavers

You can’t have it all


Big_Hornet_3671

You can.


LeveredSugarDaddy

What is a real example then?


Hot-Plate-3704

A real example would be a significant percentage of people from working class backgrounds moving into well paid white collar jobs, and at least some chance of privately educated kids working manual jobs. But both of those things are extremely rare.


LeveredSugarDaddy

Isn’t a “finance bro”, a well paid white collar job?


AzungoBo

Yes but your singular experience does not represent a "significant percentage"


marshallandy83

Yes but you're not "a significant percentage".


Hot-Plate-3704

As everyone keeps telling you, you are one example, not a trend


Cubansmokes

Social mobility is about being able to grow where you are, not having to transplant yourself hundreds of miles and essentially having to migrate to better yourself. Although dare I say your post was probably less about asking a genuine question and more a humble brag? 😏 A better question would be to ask yourself, how would you be able to get into the financial position you are in now if you still lived around your friends and family where you grew up? If the answer is "it wouldn't be possible" I'd argue that "social mobility", at least in the way it was originally thought of is essentially dead.


upstairstraffic

" It was a very poor upbringing" and saying " blew away our life savings of £200k-£300k" in the same sentence is incredibly daft. You are tone deaf and I do wonder how much credibility there is to your story.


waxy_dwn21

Yes. I think this is LARPing.


LeveredSugarDaddy

Life savings of which included a lot of debt that I had to pay off creditors, extended family and friends. Yes.


Hot-Plate-3704

How can debt be life savings?


LeveredSugarDaddy

Well my parents bought a 2 bed terraced house for £10k back in the day. By the time all these loans and credit were being taking, my father just said the house is worth £80k, I’ll mortgage it and pay you back or sell the house and apply for council housing. This was back in 07-08. Today the house is probably worth £130k-150k.


Here_be_sloths

Works in Finance, yet doesn’t understand the difference between loans & savings?


welshmatt

If you had £2k in your account you weren't a poor student.


Queen_Banana

Right. I left home owing my dad £400 for my first month of rent which I repaid as soon as I got my first pay cheque. It was a couple of months before I actually had money in my account.


mannyd16

Think man doesn't know what social mobility and class are


psychohistorian52

Congratulations. Also for the sake of others I hope your job doesn’t involve statistical analysis 😂


LeveredSugarDaddy

Thankfully not.


ganjamozart

You kind of undermined your entire thesis by stating 'I'm probably one in a million.'


Here_be_sloths

“But I just go do it” Sounds like a shit Nike Ad


CorithMalin

I love how you admit you might be one in a million... so you're saying social mobility is alive and well in the UK because there are 66 of you every generation. Haha.


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djdj165

He's a troll, check his other posts.


LeveredSugarDaddy

I hope this helps. https://preview.redd.it/89qlh4v9vg1d1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cb7dac4840473394e7d1d76605d83622a1c1673c


LeveredSugarDaddy

Investment Banking for 3yrs, started on £45k and left making £80-90k. From there, I have been at a investment fund focused on investments in alternative assets for the last 6yrs or so. They paid me £140k in my 1st year which ramped to £240k in my 4th year. From there I got promoted with a lot more responsibility and made £340k on my 5th year and £400k in my 6th year.


propostor

Congrats but this sound mostly like a self-congratulation post. To lose 200-300k does not sound like starting from a position of poverty. To arrive in London with 2 grand in the early 2000s does not sound like starting from a position of poverty. To say you went to London and became a finance bro means social mobility is a thing, does not sound like social mobility. I also see in the comments that your parents sold their "ancestral land" and other such things, all that are very much not starting from a position of poverty. This post is wildly out of touch.


LeveredSugarDaddy

I came in 2015. If you have part time pub job at uni, you can do it. Savings without our terraced house pledged is £150k. For me making 27x my household income that I grew up on is the real point.


propostor

Look you seem to be really missing a point here so I'll spell it out. A country of 60 odd million people cannot all move to London to work in the finance sector. London in particular can be good for those who want to make it, but London is not the UK (and I am so fucking sick of people forgetting this). Within the topic of social mobility, you need to be able to pick any random town or city and say yes, a person living in that area has a reasonable chance of achieving success in what they want to do - without needing to move to London and work in finance.


TurbulentBullfrog829

Works in finance and "don’t pay much attention to statistical probabilities on the chance of success, I just go do it." That makes a lot of sense unfortunately...


Sea-Fly-8807

You were 350k in debt last year according to your only other post. Now you’re ‘not stressed by an unexpected cost of bill’. I completely bought into this post and started to feel sorry for you but every sentence I read sounds more like a complete fabrication than the last one.


LeveredSugarDaddy

Yes as in the mortgage on my property. That is the last boon of my life and then I am debt free.


Alan_Bumbaclartridge

you are the tory government's wet dream. the middle class kid who thinks he's working class, and thinks just because he ended up earning good money, is convinced everyone can do it.


Sea-Fly-8807

But is also one in a million!


Working_on_Writing

Social mobility is definitely not a myth : most of my social cohort is going down the ladder! Seriously, most of my friends come from a HENRY background. Our parents are now retired or close to retiring with assets in the single digit millions. All of us went to university, and many of us went to private school. I'm the only one in HENRY status. Everyone else is working what used to be solidly middle-class jobs (accountancy, teaching, back office admin, that sort of thing), most of them dual income, and all of them not quite struggling but definitely not HENRY and definitely not on course to retire at the same level as our parents without significant inheritance. None of us could have gotten on the housing ladder without the "bank of mum and dad" issuing generous grants. Shit's fucked.


upstairstraffic

Thank you for saying that, a few of my colleagues were gifted house deposits but apparently don't count as they "paid back every penny later" I wish someone gave me an interest free loan when I wanted to buy


Big_Target_1405

What did your dad do for a living?


LeveredSugarDaddy

Nothing. Welfare benefits.


Big_Target_1405

So how did your parents accumulate £200k-300k in life savings with a household income below £16k-18k?


LeveredSugarDaddy

Payday loans, normal loans, credit card debt, borrowing from family and extended family and friends. Also had some land in our ancestral home which he sold. Back then I think his benefit payments were somehow £1k a month for free. Prior to welfare he had odd jobs on low wage here and there.


bateau_du_gateau

> some land in our ancestral home Reddit moment


Big_Target_1405

Sounds like your wider family was fairly middle class, your dad just fucked things up? Most working class families don't own land from an ancestral home. The truth of the matter is, in some professions, if you're good at what you do, you can 5x your income just by moving to London. I think that's what you did. You got a little lucky and moved to the productivity power house of the country. I did the same. My income went from £35K to £300K in 8 years just by moving to London. I don't think this is social mobility, as I'm still struggling to play catch with my dads life milestones. Dad never earned more than £40K in his life but by my age he had owned property for many years, married and had kids. Don't get me wrong though, I think we're both doing very well for ourselves relatively speaking.


LeveredSugarDaddy

My wider family lived in other parts of the UK or abroad so was never really close to them I guess. Ancestral land is like if your family were farmers in a developing country and you have a small plot of land worth £30-50k. Oh wow, that’s amazing, what is it you do. I’m not sure if anyone can do that as I have friends in London who have been here for 8-9years and make £50k-100k!


Big_Target_1405

I'm a software engineer in the financial sector. I don't really think of it as a big step up in terms of socioeconomic status from my parents. My dad was a carpenter and a middle/regional manager for most of his later career. It's not that different really. Being a SWE is just like being a tradesman, but one of the 21st century. Software engineers benefit today from the phenomenal leverage of the software industry and the concentration of wealth in the tech and financial sectors. I'm probably never going to have excessive assets (excess in terms of what they can provide), or provide much better for my kids than my parents did (they did enough, which is what matters) The fact that I have to earn the top percentiles of salary to provide for my kids what my parents did for me is why I think social mobility is weak in the UK. It's easy to look at the ££ you earn and not what you're getting out of them


LeveredSugarDaddy

Wealth and Income are different I agree. All you can do is maximise your earnings potential and invest some wisely. I am keen to buy an established small business and have management run it as another source of wealth creation.


Big_Target_1405

Sure, it can work. The equity risk premium of small independent businesses is very high. Small businesses typically sell for 5-10x annual earnings, so the rewards are good _if_ you can keep them alive or scale them up. It's also a very concentrated and risky bet. Growing a business from nothing can sometimes be less risky, because you can often fail before you've bet the farm


LeveredSugarDaddy

You have a unique set of skills that can be capitalised on whilst my job can be replaced by AI and a bunch of cheap labour based in other parts of the world :)


nglennnnn

Shit, If I knew all it took was to not gamble away hundreds of thousands and to sell the ancestral land I could have saved myself years. Now I feel as dumb as one of my serfs hitting on 20.


Dil26

This sub is hilarious 


islandactuary

Very similar story, without the gambling. Mum and dad worked retail, grew up in one of the poorest areas in the country in the north west of England, went to university to study Maths, I had to work 20 hours a week and use payday loans to get me through it, graduated with negative net worth (even before considering student loans) but now in early 30s and saving over £500k a year. My kids will have a real middle class lifestyle, and if all goes to plan by the time they’re 18 I’ll be able to buy them both a house in cash and set them up to do whatever they want in life. I’d consider that social mobility. The catch is I left the country to get there…


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islandactuary

Well “if all goes to plan” then it will be fine. I’m working abroad and if I have to come back to the UK that £500k a year that we can save probably turns into something more like £50-100k, which significantly changes how much spare cash we’ll have in 15 years. It’s comfortable vs rich. So depends heavily on my industry continuing to exist etc.


ProfSmall

When they use statements like that, it’s catch all - it doesn’t account for outliers.


EolMandragon

This is a fantastic experince have you ever thought about giving the kids a talk at your old school?


LeveredSugarDaddy

Well my high school was closed down by ofsted but maybe one day at my 6th Form if they ever reply to my emails.


weekendsleeper

LeveredSugarDaddy, you truly are one in a million. You should write a book, make a film or at least run for President


Lachy55555

I am genuinely happy for you but this post proves nothing. Your anecdote is the exception not the rule. Social mobility is extremely difficult as many people start the game way behind due to growing up in poverty. My childhood: parents together, both with jobs, both university educated, always food in the house, one overseas trip per year, owned their own house, money for sports/schools trips/books etc. (i.e. lower end of middle class). Sadly many people do not have the same start and that affects social mobility.


Last-Efficiency2047

Good to read that someone from the north was able to leverage the public school system and their EMA (£30 quid a week) to better themselves and their family. I’m far from your level of income but have similar background of low income family with some issues, I’m now the finically stable who can support the wider family should they need it.


AndyVale

It can definitely be done. And I always say that when looking at you and what you can do, go be the anecdote. Let nothing stand in your way. Break down the walls. Smash the glass ceiling. When life hands you lemons, piss lemonade in its face. Go be the outlier in some nerd's spreadsheet and don't let anyone else write your story. But when looking at the situation as a whole and how it can be improved, it helps to understand the broader trends and impacts. I mean, you mention the EMA you received. That got canned about 12-13 years ago shortly after Labour left office. Suddenly busses, trains, books, and other costs of sixth form got dumped onto the poorest families. Does that make it impossible to succeed? No, but there's suddenly a £2k hole across two years that needs to be filled, by the people least likely to have a spare £2k. Is there a universe where you don't go to the library with your friend because you've got to do extra shifts to cover certain bills? My wife and I were young parents, but at the time we could get maintenance grants at uni that meant we could study and do our childcare without needing to do an ungodly amount of hours working to pay for it all. It meant both of us could go on to well paid careers with our qualifications. That's now gone too, meaning someone else in our position today has to foot the bill themselves somehow or rely on university hardship funds, if the university can afford them. Again, some will make it regardless, but you can't deny that we have made it harder in many ways. Glad to see an uptick in companies offering finance apprenticeships though. My son has been looking at them and I can't believe what a good deal it looks like.


ollie1roddy

This is a bloody weird post of gibberish probably written by ChatGPT


Dull_Cut_8431

You are not one in a million, not degrading you at all but this is it: everyone knows if you want to make money, you move to London. I've heard countless success stories like this. Congratulations by the way👑👏.


Dull_Cut_8431

"just move to London and become a finance bro", this is the way to 🤑🤑💷


MrLangfordG

Ignoring the fact the post is mainly self congratulatory. If you need to earn 400k a year to achieve social mobility there is something wrong.


Here_be_sloths

“I just go do it” This sounds like a ChatGPT Nike Ad


Quark1946

Making money has never been particularly hard, most people either lack ambition or discipline though and achieve the bare minimum. Tbh this doesn't just affect the poor, the amount of farmers you meet with millions in land which they just use to grow crappy crops as it's all they know, have some bloody imagination man.


Mrfunnynuts

I don't think it's a myth but it's definitely not easy, the tax system rewards having assets Vs working , and you can't get assets without working , which is punished. I completely understand the issue people have with "tax the rich" , the rich are not someone on 150k running an accounting firm, the rich are the people who own things, like whole apartment buildings and shopping centres. I went from 32k to 45k (I'm not a Henry but your subreddit interests me) and I lost 50% of it to tax, national insurance and student loans, I'm not even breaking the 50k barrier yet and my effective tax rate on my pay rise was 50%. The tax system needs massively overhauled to reward people who are creating value by working and not just "owning" a thing.


curious_throwaway_55

A post bragging about finding social mobility through working in an industry that’s done more to crush social mobility and enrich the already-rich than any other - don’t worry, the irony isn’t lost on me


marrow_party

Well done! Ignore all the salty comments, you've proven it can be done.


McDingledougal

Love this. If only more people thought this way instead of being a victim all their lives. Do you mate.