Two Days' Work For One Year's Pay

Pay inequality in the UK has grown worse in the last year with today, Tuesday 6th January, marking the point at which Britain’s top executives will have amassed the same amount of pay as the average worker’s earnings for a whole year.

The figure, which is calculated by the High Pay Centre think tank which monitors top pay, uses the recent figures that show the chief executives of the top 100 companies on the London Stock Exchange earn an average of £4.7 million a year, whilst the average annual salary in the UK is £27,200.

It means that it takes these top executives just two working days to earn the same amount of money as the average British worker - one day less than the equivalent measure last year. 

Political blog Left Foot Forward points out that whilst Primark still refuses to pay its ordinary workers a living wage, last year George Weston, chief executive of Primark owners Associated British Food, was awarded £5 million for hitting performance targets, on top of a salary of £1 million and annual bonus of £900,000.

Last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published report which said that income inequality has a “statistically significant impact” on economic growth. John Hood, the communications manager of the Equality Trust campaign both agrees with this point and also highlights that the huge disparity between the wages of the rich and poor has the potential to damage British society as a whole.

“Britain is a country which used to pride itself on fair play and fair pay but this seems to have regressed into ‘winner takes all’,” he says. “The tiny elite have disappeared into the stratosphere in terms of earnings, whilst the rest of us are barely scratching a living. If it continues economic growth could well stagnate and the fabric of society will be pulled apart at the seams.”

Hood also indicates that although many political parties are discussing pay inequality, particularly in the run up to the next election, none of them have been clear about how they would tackle it. “Over four fifths of people now agree that the gap between rich and poor is too great, and 70% believe it is the government's role to reduce it. The fact that few politicians have effectively tackled inequality is at least one reason for the huge disillusionment with mainstream politics,” he says.

Read here comments from politicians of various parties but don't expect any solutions.