Reblogged from Michael Meacher MP:
It seems almost indecent to recount that the richest 400 Americans now own,
staggering as it may seem, no less than£1.4 trillions, a collective fortune
slightly bigger than the Russian economy. The latest figures also reveal that
in the US 95% of the gains from the recovery have gone to the richest 1% of the
population. Their share of overall income is now close to the highest level in
a century. The most unequal country in the Western world is now becoming even
more so. A similar pattern is now emerging in the UK. According to the
Sunday Times Rich List, published each year in April, the richest 1,000 Britons
who constitute just 0.003% of the population have increased their wealth in the
last year alone by £35bn, and by a stunning £190bn over the 4 years since the
crash. Within the top 2% of the population HMRC records that there were 4,000
persons paid more than £1 million a year in 1999, but this became 10,000 by 2010
and then a huge rise to 18,000 by 2013.
This contrasts with the findings of the Resolution Foundation that the
economic downturn in the UK had pushed another 1.4 million employees below the
living wage (£8.45 an hour in London and £7.55 elsewhere in the country) widely
regarded as necessary for a basic standard of living in Britain. Altogether
the study ‘Low Pay Britain 2013′ found that no less than a fifth of all
employees – 4.8 million Britons – now earn below this living wage. So far from
falling since the height of the recession in 2009, this number paid below the
legal minimum has actually grown by over 40%.
