Britain's pay gap growing, says TUC
Updated on 12 November 2009
The share of national wealth spent on wages has been in sharp decline, with a greater proportion going to the prosperous middle classes and super-rich, according to a new study.
The TUC said it had identified a "growing pay gap", particularly between middle income earners and the super-rich, describing it as an "overlooked" ingredient in the financial crash.
Two-thirds of national wealth was spent on wages in 1975, but the figure had slumped to 53% now, said the union organisation.
The wages of middle income earners had increased by 1.6% a year since 1980, while productivity had grown by 1.9%, it was found.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "Many have tracked the role of finance and speculators in causing the crash, but few have asked where they got the money and why so many needed to borrow so much.
"The truth is that ordinary families have had their wages squeezed and have had to borrow money which should have been part of the wage packet instead.
"While the super-rich secured themselves a personal wealth boom on a scale not seen since Dickensian times - a direct result of the rising profits share - those on middle incomes slipped behind in wages and living standards."
The TUC said UK society was now increasingly divided between the top 40% and the bottom 60%.
Stewart Lansley, author of the study, said: "For the last 30 years Britain's low and middle earners have seen their pay and living conditions stall while the incomes of the affluent, the rich and super-rich have vastly outpaced them.
"We now have an increasingly unequal society with growing income, wealth and opportunity gaps."
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