Pay gap grows ever wider

'Under capitalism the rich get richer and the poor get poorer'. Merely Marxist propaganda? Not so. A new report by the high pay commission shows that the wage gap between UK's highest earners and the rest of workers will soon be as wide as in Victorian times.

According to the commission the top 0.1% of earners will see their pay rise from 5% to 14% of national income by 2030. The last time this concentration of wealth was seen was in the early 1900s.

Last year according to the report the average salary of corporate fat cats was over Ł3,747,000. This sum is over 145 times greater than the national median full time wage of Ł25,800.

The report says the trend is likely to see a further widening of this gap to 214 times by 2020.

Undoubtedly, right wing trade union leaders will seize upon such figures as strengthening the call for a return of a Labour government.

However, recent figures published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies show that income inequality between rich earners and the majority of workers accelerated under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

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