Thursday, November 08, 2012

The UK 1%

A study based on data from the Office for National Statistics said the top 1 percent in 2011 earned an average £61.10 an hour - or £135,666 a year, a rise of 117 percent in real terms since 1986.

The lowest-paid 10 percent of workers experienced an increase by just 47 percent to an average of £7.01 an hour, or £15,565 a year over the same 25-year period.

the biggest wage inequality was recorded in London in 2011, with the top earners' pay more than 16 times higher than the lowest, and that more than one in three of the highest-paid jobs in the country were in the capital.

Brendan Barber, general secretary of the Trade Union Congress, said "The top 1 percent benefitted most from the boom, played the biggest role in causing the crash, and then protected their earnings during the recession", he said. "Instead, the cost of the economic crisis has been passed on to workers on average incomes, who have lost over £600, while those near the bottom have suffered the sharpest loss of all" 

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