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.
61 Responses to “Modest redistribution of wealth would give £40 a month boost to lowest paid”
Mick
Violence is the anarchists’ department, along with communists and other far-left nutcases.
And barter is just what the mutualists want. ‘Modern mutualists tend to be very interested in barter-economies.’
http://mutualistalliance.tumblr.com/post/23989833707/mutualism-and-anarcho-capitalism-differences
Mick
Erm, did you say you wanted a free market in the comments above? Yet you criticise even Edison, who traded on his genius and joined the ranks of the innovators able to give the world another layer of modernity and protection from the wild.
Hmmm. Perhaps Newsbot would prefer to live without pretty much every mod con, because each one was made my companies often run by rich men.
It’s a cold, boring and insular world in many corners of the left. And in contrast, I don’t care how wealthy the rich get, just so long as people get by fine further down the chain.
Newsbot9
A free market. Not capitalism.
Eddison is, again, a great example for me. He was a patent bully, who tried for monopolies rather than competing in a market. Typical Capitalist distortion of a free market!
You’re the one who is pushing down the current path of denying the poor those basics. You’re calling what is happening “fine”, as the poor starve and freeze. Keep ignoring that!
Newsbot9
Keep on palming off your views onto others, as usual. Keep calling anyone not just like you a “nutcase”, social darwinist.
And that blog’s a pile of shit, as I can see from mentioning socialism right up. Probably a false flag op from someone like you. Also, bluntly, loltumblr.
Newsbot9
“Everyone are”. No, your rich, fat off unearned income and corporate welfare are not. And just because Marconi made it big, doesn’t mean he should not pay higher tax on unearned income.