As the dust settles on the UK General Election, one of the most important tasks facing the new Government will be healing the clear, and stark, divisions in our society. Chief among these: the vast gap between the super rich and the rest of us — and the resulting huge inequality that’s poisoning our society.
Just the richest 1,000 people in the UK alone, an analysis by the Equality Trust has found, have more wealth than the poorest 40 percent of the population. In fact, last year these rich saw their wealth growth by a barely believable £82.5 billion, the equivalent of £226 million a day, or £2,615 a second.
To put that into context, just one year’s increase in wealth for the richest 1,000 people could pay the energy bills of all 25.6 million UK households for two and a half years. Alternatively, this same increase could pay the grocery bill for all of the UK’s users of food banks for 56 years.
In separate research our Equality Trust has found that the average pay of FTSE 100 CEOs — the UK’s top corporate executives — is running around 190 times what the average employee takes home. These executives now earn 165 times more a year than UK nurses, 140 times more than teachers, and 132 times more than police officers.