Inequality
Recent research and publications on Inequality
National Management Salary Survey: Forty years’ worth of surveys found that high pay rewards at the top have widened the income gap. (April 2013)
Llloyd’s TSB Private Banking: a study showed that total household wealth hit £7trillion for the first time but that the gap between rich and poor is widening. (5th April 2013)
Social Change Harvard-Manchester Initiative: Inequality, Instability, and Mobility in Family Life is one of the most comprehensive comparisons of social and economic inequality in Britain and the U.S. to date, examining the interconnections between family background, education, and income over the life-course. (April 2013)
IPPR: Great expectations: Exploring the promises of gender equality showed that the pay gap between professional & unskilled women is greater than that between the same groups of men. (31st March 2013)
IFS: Analysis of the Budget 2013 showed that announcements will have little impact on inequality but overall government reforms will exacerbate the problem. (21st March 2013)
Energy Bill Revolution: Families and fuel poverty finds 1.6 million children in the UK are now living in fuel poverty, an increase of 130,000 since 2010 (27th February 2013).
GLA: The wealth gap in London. The gap between rich and poor in London is growing, with the difference between the average income for the second highest tenth and second lowest tenth growing around 14 per cent more than inflation since 2003. (12th February)
Joseph Rowntree Foundation: ‘Monitoring poverty and social exclusion in Scotland 2013’, found that while child poverty in Scotland is down 10%, many inequalities remain. (21st January 2013)
Oxfam: A pre-Davos briefing ‘The Cost of Inequality’ demonstrates how wealth and income inequality hurt us all. (January 2013)
Markit: Finds 43% of households believe their finances will worsen in 2013, compared with 24% who expect it to improve. (24th December 2012)
Defra: ‘Food Statistics Pocketbook’ shows increased food prices hit poor households hardest to the detriment of their health. (14th December 2012)
Institute for Fiscal Studies: Analysis of the Autumn Statement shows measures will leave low-income households and richest 10 per cent worse off, protecting the upper-middle. (7th December)
Office for National Statistics: Figures show that the richest 10 per cent of UK households own 40 per cent of the nation’s wealth. Watch the video! (3rd December)
ONS: New figures show that, since 1986 the top 10% saw earnings increase by 81%, while the bottom 10% increased by just 47%. (7th November)
Class/ My Fair London: Why Inequality Matters. Pamphlet presenting key findings from The Spirit Level. Shows that only by narrowing income differences can we improve the social and psychological well-being of whole populations. (October)
One Society: We calculated that if the National Minimum Wage had kept pace with FTSE 100 CEO salaries since 1999, it would now be £18.89 per hour.
UN Conference on Trade and Development: Report says governments should reduce inequality to boost economic performance (18th September)
King’s Fund: Health Inequalities – An Olympic Size Challenge. Highlights link between health and inequality. (23rd August 2012)
Tax Justice Network: Tax Justice Focus – The Inequality Edition(guest edited by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett). Explains why studies of economic inequality have systematically underestimated the wealth and income enjoyed by the world’s wealthiest people. (August 2012)
Equality Trust: Research Digest: Inequality and the 2011 England Riots. Demonstrates that the issues the Riots, Communities and Victims Panel said should be addressed if future riots are to be prevented, are all closely linked to inequality (6th August).
The IFS has a new tool for calculating where you lie in the UK income distribution (August).
Centre for Economic and Policy Research: Missing the Story: The OECD’s Analysis of Inequality. Says OECD analysis underestimates the scale (and some of the key drivers) of inequality in wealthy countries, but is right to say that “labour market institutions” reduce inequality(17thJuly)
Russell Sage Foundation: Social Inequality Working Papers. A collection of around 30 papers tackling subjects including political participation, education, families, health and public policy. (July)
UCL’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis produced a graphic mapping life expectancy in London by tube stop (July).
Office for National Statistics: Wealth and Assets Surveyshowed the widening wealth gap in the UK between top and bottom (12th July 2012).
OECD: Economic Survey of the United States 2012. Advises the US to tackle high levels of income inequality if social mobility is to be improved (28th June 2012).
HM Revenue and Customs: HMRC Tax & NIC Receipts. Tax on disposable incomes for the poorest fifth rose year on year from 28% to 31%. The richest fifth rose from 12% to 13% (26th June 2012).
Intergenerational Foundation: Intergenerational Fairness Index. Shows the economic gap between generations was 28% wider in 2010 than in 2000 (25th June 2012).
National Statistics: Poverty and income inequality in Scotland: 2010-11. Figures show a 2% fall overall and 3% fall in child poverty compared to the previous year (14th June 2012).
DWP: Households Below Average Income Statistics 1994/95- 2010/11. In 2010/11, 16% of people (9.8 million) were in households in the UK with incomes below 60% of contemporary median net disposable household income – a fall of 3 percentage points from 1994/95 (14th June 2012).
Joseph Rowntree Foundation: Welfare Reform and Poverty. Report on welfare reform shows the decline in quality jobs in the UK is driving rising income inequality. Too many jobs are short-term, poorly paid, low-skilled and dead-end. (7th June 2012)
National Institute of Economic and Social Research. National Institute Economic Review. Shows income inequality increased in the run-up to the crisis, but “consumption inequality” did not (April 2012).
A. Buccio (University of Verona) and M. Piovesan (Harvard Business School): Pay Dispersion and Work Performance. Study of Italian football shows doubling pay dispersion decreases by 6% the probability of winning a match (19th March 2012).
Church Action on Poverty: It’s time to close the gap between rich and poor – the basic case. Explores different ‘gaps’ or examples of inequality, including the Tax Gap, the Pay Gap, the Price Gap, the Power Gap, and others. Also explains why tackling inequality is demanded of us by the gospel - the booklet has been mailed out to church leaders of all denominations across the UK (9th March 2012).
Resolution Foundation: Essential Guide to Squeezed Britain. Shows that the increase in the pay gap and rising inflation are harming living standards. (23rd January 2012)
Oxfam: Left Behind by the G20? How inequality and environmental degradation threaten to exclude poor people from the benefits of economic growth. Finds inequality hinders growth and is rising in 14/18 countries. Points out that half the world’s poorest people live within the G20. (19th January 2012)
OECD: Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising. Finds the gap between high and low pay in the UK has grown more sharply than in any other high-income country. Annual average income of the top 10% in 2008 was just under £55,000, about 12 times higher than that of the bottom 10%, at £4,700 (5th December 2011).
The Resolution Foundation: some great graphics on inequality. Find out where you stand in the UK income distribution league table, and explore the winners and losers in UK pay over the last 35 years (3rd November 2011).
Markit: Household Finance Index. Shows the widest ever gap between top and bottom income groups. Found more than half of those earning less than £15,000 a year said their finances had worsened in the last three months, but only 20% of those in the highest income group (21st November 2011).
Office for National Statistics: 2011 Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings. The bottom tenth of earners saw their pay increase just 0.1% between 2010 and 2011 while the top tenth saw their pay grow 18 times faster (23rd November 2011).
The Equality Trust: The lives of the other four fifths. Looks at how living standards, education, health and social mobility vary across quintiles of the income distribution in the UK, finding that there are wide disparities on living conditions across the income distribution. Shows that there has been very little social mobility in the last decade (12th October 2011).
Incomes Data Services: SmallCap bosses earnings rise four times faster than workforce. Directors of SmallCap companies saw median earnings rise by 12.5% year on year, to £418,000. Average weekly earnings of all private sector employees increased by 3% (17th October 2011).
Trust for London: London’s Poverty Profile 2011. Finds London is the most unequal region in England. The top 10% of households account for 40% of all income. Babies born in Southwark, Croydon, Haringey and Harrow are twice as likely to die before their 1st birthday as those born in Bromley, Kingston and Richmond (20th October 2011).
New Economics Foundation: Ten Reasons to Care About Economic Inequality. Ten reasons why we should look at economic inequality, not just at tackling poverty and improving social mobility (24th October 2011).
Resolution Foundation: Painful separation: An international study of the weakening relationship between economic growth and the pay of ordinary workers. Concludes that workers across the OECD are gaining less of the proceeds from economic growth, with inequality being the main driver (28th October 2011).
IFS: Child and Working Age Poverty and Inequality in UK: 2010. Relative child poverty is forecast to remain broadly constant between 2009-10 and 2012-13, before rising slightly in 2013-14. Relative working-age adult poverty is forecast to rise slightly between 2009-10 and 2012-13, before rising faster in 2013-14. Absolute child and working-age adult poverty are forecast to rise continuously (October 2011).
Joseph Rowntree Foundation: Does income inequality cause health and social problems?A review of literature finding general agreement about a correlation between income inequality and health/social problems (22nd September 2011).
The High Pay Commission: Director’s Pensions: in it for themselves?Finds a big disparity between pensions at the top and median of income distributions, with top directors getting around £175,000 whilst the median pension is just £5,860 (8th August 2011).
The Equality Trust: Research Digest: Trends and measures. Finds that the usual measures have underestimated UK inequality by up to 10 percentage points due to under-representation of top 1% incomes; used international comparisons to show potential of political policy change to reduce inequality (July 5 2011).
TUC: Touchstone Pamphlet Fairness and Prosperity. Outlines the conventional economic view that high levels of inequality are necessary to achieve economic success and shows that international comparisons do not support that view; finds evidence that some redistribution enhances economic performance (July 18 2011).
Resolution Foundation: Missing Out: Why ordinary workers are experiencing growth without gain. Shows that low-to-middle earners are getting a shrinking share of the value generated by the UK economy, mainly due to increasing inequality of pay (July 22 2011).
TUC: Britain’s Livelihood Crisis. A significant and growing proportion of the population face deep-seated economic problems and uncertainties. This has been triggered by the increasing polarisation of the jobs market and spreading joblessness (6th June 2011).
UNICEF. Global Inequality:Beyond the Bottom Billion. A review of income distribution in 141 countries. Shows how inequality negatively impacts upon economic growth, health, social problems, political instabilities and social inequalities (April 2011).
European Commission: Why socio-economic inequalities increase? Facts and policy responses in Europe. Concludes that less unequal societies provide more economic and social advantages, and that the EU needs to put policies against socio-economic inequalities at the heart of its actions, for the benefit of all citizens (2010).