We Britons don’t understand the levels of income inequality in our own country. A quick & dirty web poll, as part of the ToUChstone Middlebritainometer tool shows that the poorer you are, the more you overestimate your position on the UK incomes scale, and the richer you are, the more you underestimate it. People in the top 20% of incomes see themselves as being pretty close to the average. (more…)
The TUC’s new Middlebritainometer (widgeted below) shows you how close (or not) you are to middle income Britain. Give it your income and it will quite possibly give you a surprise!
Certain sections of the media are very fond of talking about Middle Britain, portraying an aspirational group of happy Mondeo drivers as the very core of society. This is something of a fiction though, and the new Life In The Middle pamphlet shows how British society has moved in recent history from a sort of diamond shape, clustered around median income with some poorer and a comparable number richer, tapering off in both directions.
Now it’s all gone (literally) pear-shaped. The median has fallen downwards in the overall income scale, with the working poor better off in recent years, but the middle quintile slumped around the £20,000pa mark, and professionals and the super-rich stretching off much further at the top of the graph. (more…)
