Wage disparity between the UK’s high earners and the rest of the working population is grossly unequal, according a report from the High Pay Commission.
Its report More for less: what has happened to pay at the top and does it matter? found that the top 0.1% of UK earners will see their pay rise from 5% to an estimated 14% of national income by 2030, a level not previously seen in the UK since the start of the 20th century. Currently top earners in this group takes as big a chunk of the national income as they did in the 1940s.
Meanwhile, the latest Institute for Commercial Management (ICM) poll showed that 72% of the public think high pay makes Britain grossly unequal while 73% have no faith in government or business to tackle excessive high pay.
The poll showed that, from a range of options, the majority of the public (57%) wants top pay linked clearly to organisation performance, while half (50%) want shareholders to have a direct say in senior pay and bonus packages.
Deborah Hargreaves, chair of the High Pay Commission, said: "This is the clearest evidence so far that the gap between pay of the general public and the corporate elite is widening rapidly and is out of control.
"Set against the tough spending measures and mixed employer performance, we have to ask ourselves whether we are paying more and getting less.”
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