The current cost of living is pushing more people into poverty, with almost 68% of low income...
Wealth
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15/01/2013
‘Highly unequal’ wealth distribution persists
The top 10 per cent of the population owns 100 times more wealth than the bottom 10 per cent, a briefing paper has highlighted. The paper was prepared for the University of Birmingham’s new Policy Commission on the Distribution of Wealth, launched in September 2012.
Category: Reports -
04/12/2012
44 per cent of wealth owned by richest 10 per cent
The wealthiest tenth of households own nearly 44 per cent of overall wealth, and are over 850 times wealthier than the least wealthy tenth of households, according to the Office for National Statistics. The figures are based on 2008–2010 data from the longitudinal Wealth and Assets Survey.
Category: News stories -
16/11/2012
Home ownership lowers UK wealth inequality
Increases in owner-occupation and house prices in the UK over the period 2000–2005 led to falls in relative measures of wealth inequality, according to a new study. Researchers compared the level, composition and distribution of household wealth in five industrial countries: the UK, USA, Italy, Finland and Sweden.
Category: Reports -
11/10/2012
What drives growing inequalities?
Growing income and wealth inequalities in European and other developed countries are being driven by a complex range of factors, according to researchers working on a European Commission-funded project. Their report summarises the findings of a number of separate studies looking at inequalities in income, wealth and education.
Category: Reports -
05/10/2012
Policy commission launched on wealth distribution
Birmingham University has announced the launch of a Policy Commission on the Distribution of Wealth. The Commission, chaired by David Urquhart (Bishop of Birmingham), will review existing knowledge about the distribution of personal wealth across different groups in society.
The Commission will focus on three particular kinds of personal wealth: pensions; housing/property; and financial savings/investments. It will consider whether the outcomes of wealth inequality cause socio-economic problems and social divisions, or whether there are advantages to an unequal distribution of wealth – for example, in creating incentives for entrepreneurs or others to create economic growth.
Finally, the Commission will move on to consider policy options, such as how to spread opportunities to accumulate wealth; how to redistribute wealth; and how to mitigate any negative impacts of wealth inequality.
Category: News stories -
29/08/2012
Clegg calls for one-off wealth levy
The UK’s wealthiest people could be asked to pay more tax for a limited period, under a suggestion from the Deputy Prime Minister. He said people of ‘very considerable’ wealth should contribute more in order to preserve social cohesion.
Nick Clegg was being interviewed by the Guardian newspaper ahead of the Liberal Democrats’ annual conference. He suggested new taxes should be drawn up going beyond his party’s existing proposal to impose a ‘mansion tax’ on properties worth more than £2 million. The new tax would also fall on wealth, rather than income. He said:
‘If we are going to ask people for more sacrifices over a longer period of time, a longer period of belt tightening as a country, then we just have to make sure that people see it is being done as fairly and as progressively as possible... The action is making sure that very high asset wealth is reflected in the tax system in the way that it isn’t now.’
Category: News stories -
23/08/2012
Rich gain most from ‘quantitative easing’
The richest households have seen the value of their assets increase substantially as a result of the Bank of England’s extraordinary interventions in gilts markets following the global financial crash.
Since 2008 the Bank of England has spent around £375 billion on asset purchases (almost entirely gilts, or government bonds). This so-called ‘quantitative easing’ policy, designed to bolster liquidity in financial markets, has pushed up the price not only of gilts but also of corporate bonds and equities. A new Bank of England paper tries to estimate how this has affected the distribution of wealth in a variety of ways.
Category: Reports -
08/08/2012
Parental wealth key to children’s outcomes
Parental wealth is positively associated with a wide range of outcomes for children in early adulthood, according to a paper from the London School of Economics.
The study claims to provide the first UK estimates for the associations between parental wealth during adolescence and various children’s outcomes in early adulthood (at age 25), based on data from the British Household Panel Survey.
Category: Reports -
19/07/2012
Inequality ‘far worse’ than thought
Inequality has reached extreme proportions in many countries - but, according to campaigners, the problem is far worse than anyone has understood it until now. This is because all studies exploring economic inequality have systematically underestimated the wealth and income enjoyed by the world's wealthiest individuals.
Eight of the world's most respected economists specialising in economic inequality were interviewed for the study. They all confirmed a huge under-reporting problem in this area.
Category: Reports -
12/07/2012
Wealthiest 20 per cent own nearly two-thirds of all household wealth
Sharp inequalities persist in the distribution of household wealth, according to the latest official statistics.
The figures come from the second wave of the official Wealth and Assets Survey – a longitudinal survey of how wealth is distributed among households in Great Britain. The latest survey covers the period 2008–2010.
Category: Reports
