I Don’t Care Where Poor People Live. I Just Don’t Want to Pay for Them to Live in Zone 1.
I will say the quiet part out loud because everyone in finance thinks it but pretends not to.
For context, I am a Chinese takeaway kid from the North of England. Second generation. No trust fund. No family property in London. No safety net. Like a lot of East Asian kids, I did everything you are told is the right path. Worked hard at school. Got good grades. Went to university. Took on student debt. Broke into a competitive industry. Landed a well paid job in finance through sheer grind. I moved cities because that is where the opportunities were. Nothing about this was handed to me.
And yet somehow I am still the one getting bent over by the system.
I am completely fine with people living wherever they want. I am not anti immigrant, anti poor, or anti anything other than bad policy. What I am against is being forced to subsidise people who do not work or barely work to live on some of the most expensive land on the planet, while people who actually have to be in London to generate GDP get crushed.
I work in banking. As a junior, I paid obscene rent, worked brutal hours, got annihilated by the tax man, and saved for years just to scrape together a deposit for an overpriced shoebox in a reasonably decent area. That is the standard deal for anyone in finance, law, consulting, medicine, or tech in London. You pay through the nose early on, delay everything, and hope the maths eventually works.
The people who get hit hardest by this are young professionals who were not fortunate enough to be born in London or into wealthy families. If you did not grow up here and did not have parents who could buy you a flat or let you live rent free, you pay the full market price. Higher rents. Higher taxes. Often student debt on top of it. I had to do exactly that. Move cities, take on debt, grind early, and absorb costs that locals with inherited property or legacy council tenancies never face.
This system actively punishes ambition. It punishes people who did everything right. Study hard. Delay gratification. Move for opportunity. Take risk. Contribute. Meanwhile access to subsidised housing in the most expensive parts of the country is often determined by birth location, family history, or long standing eligibility rather than contribution or necessity.
Now explain to me why the person next door, who does not need to be anywhere near Canary Wharf, the City, or a client site, is paying a fraction of the housing cost through social housing or benefits. Why exactly am I subsidising prime location housing for people whose economic activity does not require them to be there.
The scale of this is not small. Around 28 percent of residents in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea live in social housing. Westminster saw one of the largest increases in England, rising from 25.9 percent of households in social rent in 2011 to 28.3 percent in 2021. Islington is roughly 40 percent. Even Notting Hill, which people think of as ultra affluent, is around 10 percent social housing. This is a huge share of some of the most valuable residential land on earth allocated independently of productivity or necessity.
Zooming out, the trend is even more dysfunctional. In London overall, private renting exploded from 13.9 percent of households in 1991 to 30.1 percent in 2021. Over the same period, social housing only fell modestly, from 28.9 percent to 23.1 percent. In practice, this means an ever growing cohort of young professionals and students are forced into an increasingly expensive private rental market, while a large block of housing remains permanently subsidised and insulated from market pressure.
It gets worse. Based on 2021 Census data, roughly 47.6 to 48 percent of social housing households in London are headed by someone born outside the UK. I already struggle to justify paying for UK born households to remain in subsidised housing for life when they are able bodied. Why should I also be paying for people who moved here to access lifetime housing support in the most expensive city in the country without a meaningful contribution history.
To be clear, I am not against immigration and I am not against social housing. What I am against is treating social housing as a permanent entitlement tied to location. Social housing should exist for people who genuinely cannot work, or as a temporary safety net. It should not be a multigenerational, inheritable subsidy to live in Zone 1 or Zone 2 indefinitely.
London is not a lifestyle choice for high skill workers. It is a functional requirement. If you work in capital markets, M&A, asset management, or top tier professional services, you have to be in London. Long commutes are not realistic when your hours are unpredictable and client driven. Proximity is part of the job.
For many others, it simply is not.
We accept that people move for opportunity. I did. My parents did. People have always done this. Yet housing policy pretends that location is an entitlement rather than a trade off.
Planning policy makes this worse. New developments in affluent areas are forced to include affordable housing. I am sorry, but you do not have a right to live in a nice area if you are not willing or able to do the work required to afford it. This cross subsidy inflates prices for everyone else, reduces supply, and locks in exactly the same allocation problem we already have.
The end result is perverse. You super subsidise rents for one group, inflate rents for everyone else by shrinking supply, depress wages in low skill jobs by oversupplying labour, and then tax the most mobile and productive workers to fund it all. Young professionals who did everything right end up paying the highest price.
There are better models. Look at Singapore’s HDB approach. Housing support is structured, contribution aware, and not a lifetime claim on prime land. London instead treats social housing as a permanent carve out from economic reality.
This is not about cruelty. It is about incentives, fairness, and economic function. London cannot be a global financial centre while also being a heavily subsidised residential space for people whose livelihoods are not tied to it.
If you want to live in central London, earn it or pay for it. If not, there should be no shame in living somewhere cheaper with a better quality of life. What makes no sense is pretending this system is compassionate when it punishes ambition and rewards stagnation.
Curious whether anyone can defend the current setup without hiding behind slogans.
I am sorry, but
You will eat the bugs, own nothing, and pay more tax.
You will fund the couple who never worked, their benefits hoard, and their flat next door.
You will be told this is fairness.
And you will like it.
Further proof Europe is fucked. There's a lot of problems in the America domestically, but there is still a lot of social mobility possibility for the poor or middle-class, smart, and ambitious people in this country. European social mobility seems like a false idea. America probably had more opportunity in the 1980s; but there's still a lot of opportunity and people from non-wealthy backgrounds initally can do very well in tech, banking, medicine, law, entrepreneurship, etc.
Edit to answer your question at the bottom:
It's very unpopular for any government in any part of the world to take away benefits, so it never happens even if officials swear it will once they are in power. Nobody wants to sign away an election loss or poll declines. It's one thing to say they'll do anything vs. actually getting rid of wellfare policies and then having to deal with angry and motivated voters. This is more of a global thing than a UK issue; but given Europe's prominent social net, it's more relevant for you guys vs. the US, who never developed as much of a social safety net.
Isn’t social housing and inheritable rent controlled units a big issue in NYC as well? Genuinely asking as a European who has seen some videos/news on the topic
*Mamdani enters the chat*
here here, agreed. I got tired of the bs and moved to a farm
If you are a salaried 25-35 year old guy in EU/UK, you are the schmuck. You are the one funding the entire system. High enough salary to be in top tier tax brackets, but not a wealthy business owner who can minimize taxes through setting up LLCs and a bunch of other tax minimization schemes. No. Your income is up for grabs. You work 50% of time for the government. What does the government do with it? You answered it yourself above.
For me I see two options. If you stay in the EU/UK, have to become a biz owner ASAP, professional services is not worth it anymore.
If you want to stay in professional services, be in USA/UAE, maybe HK/SG.
Just my 2c.
Totally agree.
If you are a salaried 25 to 35 year old in the UK or EU, you are the schmuck funding the entire system. You earn enough to be in the top tax brackets, but not in the right way. You are not a business owner with structures. You are not asset rich. Your income is PAYE, visible, and easy to grab. You work a huge chunk of your life for the government and get zero sympathy because on paper you are “rich”.
What makes it worse is that you are nowhere near rich enough to avoid it. You are rich in the least useful way possible. High income, low control, no protection. And culturally, nobody feels bad for you. The UK has a deep hostility to success and hard work. People would rather drag everyone down to mediocrity than accept that some people earn more by doing harder or higher impact work.
Everyone likes to say “my taxes pay for this”. They do not. The system is funded by a relatively small group of high income salaried employees and business owners. On the extreme end, people like Denise Coates and Alexander Gerko. More broadly, tens of thousands of SME owners who take real risk, employ people, and generate taxable profit. Without that group, the state simply does not balance.
I also do not think this system is sustainable. It cannot last forever. Birth rates are too low, the number of pensioners keeps rising, and the pool of state dependants keeps growing. The dependency ratio keeps worsening, and the bill gets pushed onto a shrinking group of productive workers and the current immigration system that was meant to fix all this has its priorities all wrong.
Immigration can absolutely add huge value when you get the mix right. Look at the US. Average household income is about $66,600. Nigerian Americans earn over $81k on average. Chinese Americans around $102,800. Vietnamese Americans about $88k. Korean Americans roughly $94k. Thai Americans around $82k. Ghanaian Americans about $77k. Those groups expand the tax base, start businesses, and move into high paid roles. That is how immigration actually helps the system.
That is not what the UK is optimising for. Instead of prioritising high value add migrants who will either earn well or create jobs (pretty sure a lot are scared off by the taxes these days tbf), we are importing large numbers of low productivity roles and refugees in recent years. Necessary work, but fiscally useless when concentrated in expensive cities and paired with housing and in work subsidies. That is not ideology. It is arithmetic.
Side note, this thread got flagged as a potential violation magnet so I cannot even post anonymously anymore 😂. That probably tells you everything about how uncomfortable this conversation makes people.
I also saw it reposted on Instagram by the WSO account. The comments are exactly what you would expect. About half are people saying we should not have to live like this. The rest openly hate success or go full lefty. Someone even said if benefits are so good, why do I not quit my job. As if ambition, self respect, and wanting to build something do not exist.
Your conclusion is right. If you stay in the UK or EU, you need to become a business owner fast. Salaried professional services is becoming a bad deal. If you want to stay salaried, the US, UAE, and maybe Singapore or Hong Kong are simply more rational systems.
The UK punishes ambition, taxes effort, and then acts surprised when the people holding the whole thing together start planning their exit.
I don't want to hijack your thread but I have seen threads 5yr+ old on WSO that kind of skirt around (and occasionally touch on) one of the biggest questions for ambitious people in the UK....
Whether the system (for whatever reason) is even set up for capital generation (in this case for individuals)?
And the 5yr+ thing doesn't mean that we still shouldn't discuss the topics, because your present day experience is still worth sharing.
There isn’t a single political party that’s serious about cutting public services or welfare either
It does seem like the US is creeping towards a large state too
The idea is that by living in a welfare state, you reduce social unrest (might also be a religious / spiritual motivation). Consider how bad the unrest is now, if the government start removing/reduce social support, society would explode.
I'll make a few points here
I would say this feels a little misplaced. Social subsidized housing makes up a little more than 2% of the UK budget. Far far more is spent on old people and the triple lock, and the way the UK system is set up is specifically to benefit old people over young. IMO, this feels like older people pointing you towards immigrants who-in general-contribute quite a lot, rather than the generous pension system the UK has set up, along with the massive NIMBY system which allows older people to use homes they bought for cheap to make money off younger people through rent in an intergenerational financial transfer
believe it or not. it’s the same exact issue in nyc but worse. there’s way more international and generational wealth in nyc than hot can imagine compared to london.
I have no trust fund, no family help, no safety net. Started on the sell side, grinded through tough hours while living with roommates up until my late 20s in zero amenity building/units. Now on the buyside living alone and my salary is being eaten alive by expensive rents. because the alternative is really long commutes I can't afford with unpredictable hours. Without a roommate now 66% of my salary goes straight to rent for a comfortable one-bedroom downtown, and half my income comes from bonus, so one bad year and I'm screwed.
Picture this: a decent one-bedroom in a midtown neighborhood goes for $5,000 a month right now (in a trendy location that becomes 6k+). That's what you'd pay to rent it. If you want to buy the same exact unit? Forget it. the purchase price starts at $1.2 million or more, and your all-in monthly carry.. mortgage, property taxes, maintenance, HOA fees easily runs $7,000 to $8,000 a month. It takes grinding at high comp levels for 5-7 years straight with no layoffs, saving every bonus and living like a monk, just to scrape together a 20% down payment (plus all other upfront fees/taxes) without drowning in debt.
And right next door of these $1mm door units is public housing or Section 8 units in the *same neighborhood* (in brooklyn/uptown/downtown lots of public housing next to luxury housing) families are paying $300 to $600 a month for equivalent space — and trust me the community acts like. Spend a day in Bushwich and you’ll aww what i mean.
NYCHA data shows 25-30% of prime stock is locked up like this. often multigenerational tenancies or recent arrivals whose jobs don't require being steps from Grand Central. They walk five minutes to groceries, parks, everything. No commute stress.
For the rest of us who *have* to be here-commutes from anywhere affordable are hell. Try 45 to 90 minutes each way on the packed L train or BQE crawl, sardined in during rush hour, summer sweatboxes or winter slush nightmares. Quality of life? Nonexistent. add NYC's brutal weather swings, black ice commutes, and zero work-life balance. if you’re not coupled up and living with friends or making bank nyc is a hell hole.
if you want a Brooklyn "bargain"? A Bed-Stuy (modestly high crime compared to the rest of the city) a 1BR might pencil at $900,000, but factor in a 25-30minute walk to the station plus 35-45 minutes (including the wait) on the A or C train. up to 90 minutes total door-to-door each way. Might as well live in Philly. living in NJ is the same thing. nyc prices without any of the lifestyle amenities (with more space). The only people ok with all this clear $500k+, share housing or are local.
Your point on punishing ambition is spot on, but NYC is life on the hardest mode.
Well good news for you, if CA institutes this billionare tax and Mamdani's proposals are implemented (even just some of it) then a big portion of finance & tech jobs will then relocate to Nevada / Texas / Florida / North Carolina / etc where the COL is waaaaaaaaay cheaper. So then you'll have ample opportunity to move out
NYC / CA are both complete scams, they took the golden goose and are slowly squeezing its neck hoping it won't notice and will continue to lay eggs
they won’t ever move from CA/NY. those in their 40s/50s all own property and have for years before COVID + the fed lowering rates /increasing the money supply further enriched them. if you’re 30 without a dual income household or generational wealth you’re fucked if you don’t become an MD.
(in both CA/NY where i work) they’re all literally landlords and homeowners on the buyside. and i literally have to shamelessly beg them for raises so i don’t have to live in a bad neighborhood / endure insane commutes / or have any kind of disposable income after rent (and i still don’t). it’s been 10yrs since my first finance internship (mostly tier 1 roles) and i’m barely scrapping by (without becoming a monk/joining the FIRE movement) is just insane
without investment in public transit and mixed use housing - i literally will exist to work, pay rent and taxes. higher taxes on the highest earners aren’t really the problem (they make too much to move - billionaires relocated from nyc/chi/ca years ago)
middle/back office (plus some research) is already overseas or in TX/Utah/Florida etc. in my working life local policy, nation policy and the Fed have don’t nothing but defend incumbent wealth. Mandami actual will further enrich market rent property owners (rent freezes increase market rents, free childcare could mean new parents stay in nyc instead of making room for the next generation to take their place/prior housing.. etc i could go on)
liberals and conservatives have done nothing but support the “capital” class. and continue to do so
What do you think happens when many people, with high incomes, move to a much smaller city with a lower cost of living?
London social housing is so fucked. There are people living in 50-100% subsidised housing in places like Kensington, Hampstead, Camden, Islington. Not only that you can have these houses for up to a lifetime plus a succession!
Direct transfer of an annuity of up to 20-30k a year
The natural progression of VP in IB - ECM is (and I say this kindly and speaking from experience and a similar background):
WSO >> HenryUK sub-reddit >> NappyValleyNet
Welcome, friend.
I have long since passed the Anger / Baraining stage with this issue, and now at Acceptance. We are a politically insignificant minority and will just need to make sure we buy plenty of lube at each and every Budget Statement.
Yeah man, it's these greedy poor people that are the problem lol, not the fact that we live under a system that lets rich NIMBYs block the construction of new housing units and allows a single person to amass a net worth of billions while skirting every tax imaginable. Nope, it's the janitor mopping your office building that lives on social housing that is everything wrong with our current socioeconomic system for sure.
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