A modest redistribution of wealth from the top to the bottom would give a pay rise of £40 a month to the lowest paid 25 per cent of the income scale, according to a new report from the High Pay Centre.
A modest redistribution of wealth from the top to the bottom would give a pay rise of £40 a month to the lowest paid 25 per cent of the income scale, according to a new report from the High Pay Centre.
The share of national income going to the top 1 per cent of the income distribution has more than doubled since 1979 to 14.5 per cent from 6 per cent.
At the same time wages for most of the population have stagnated, barely keeping up with inflation.
And government plans to give a tax break worth up to £2.7 billion to the top 1 per cent when the 50p rate is abolished in April means take home pay for the rich will become even more disproportionate, the report says.
But if those earning more than £150,000 took a 10 per cent pay cut and this went directly to the bottom 25 per cent, they would get a 55 per hour pay rise to £7.35, taking them closer to the national living wage of £7.45.
As well as being fair, this would inject spending power into the economy for those at the bottom, the report says.
Currently taxpayers subsidise low-paying employers to the tune of £4 billion with in-work cash transfers a year, it adds.
Inequality at a glance
. In 1979 the top 0.1 per cent took home 1.3 per cent of the national income; by 2007 this had grown to 6.5 per cent.
. The Gini co-efficient, an internationally recognised measure of inequality, was 0.240 in the UK in 1978, since then it has been increasing and in 2010/2011 it was 0.338.
. Someone on an annual salary of £500,000 takes home more in a month than the average person takes home in a year.
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61 Responses to “Modest redistribution of wealth would give £40 a month boost to lowest paid”
Newsbot9
Ah yes, the things the poor don’t have, or are selling, as they’re turning off the utilities and eating less and less. Your rich can afford those things, not anyone else in this day and age. Your “wealth creators” have taken them away from the 99%, so you can become ever-richer.
Cuba has far less poverty than the UK, so yes – keep talking up your Jihad against British workers.
Mick
I bet you wouldn’t say no to a cool million if it bounced your way.
And the business leaders or visionary entrepreneurs are the ones to set the framework into which the workers can place themselves to get the small wheels turning.
Mick
Mutualists have this fool idea that a man must earn only what he’s ‘worth’ in a kind-of barter economy. How that encourages enterprise and our sharpest minds to shoot to the top is anyone’s guess.
Mick
The wealth creators have done no such thing. Indeed, big bosses fall from greater heights. In proportion, everyone has it hard.
Thanks to advances, the average man has a better standard of comfort than Louis the Sun King of France. Just imagine all this luxury had the innovators had less freedom to take their risks and lacked all that capital.
Just imagine how ‘rich’ Edison would have been under mutualism. He couldn’t keep the loot for himself and would have wondered what the point was in a stunted marketplace which would have seen less competition.
Newsbot9
Ah yes, like the Bankers. Oh, wait! “In Proportion”? Ah yes, your mega-rich are getting richer faster than ever. The proportion of wealth you have is shooting up, to the detriment of the economy.
And indeed – average man’s standard of living is plummeting, as you’re driving away workers and innovators and restricting capital.
And indeed, you’re the one determined to make sure that there are Edisons – bully-boys, determined to capture monopoly markets. Rather than a healthy, *competitive* market – what you call “stunted”, since you can’t so easily control it!
Thanks for demolishing your own argument.