It's not just at the bottom end, it happens at the top end of the banking sector where there's an attitude of entitlement to high bonuses regardless of performance. The argument that used to be used was you need to pay the best bonus to reward the top performers, which is valid, but then when you have banks where the shareholders are getting poor returns and even worse, where the taxpayer has had to step in to cover losses so that depositors haven't lost their money, there is still a general attitude of entitlement culture at the top that even if performance has been poor, management should still receive a huge bonus because they have "worked hard to get there" and "work long hours".
Then also you saw it in government with the MPs and their expenses, remember the defence used by many was "we haven't broken any rules" - if the rules say there are loopholes where you can run a gravy train at the expense of the taxpayer then go for it. They also said stuff like "MPs aren't in it for the money, they want to be in government to serve the public etc", I think they felt that because they had been voted in at an election they were somehow deserving of a fiddle on the second homes because they were such worthy people.