The rich get richer and the poorer get poorer?
Well, it seems so from these two graphs.
Here they are enlarged…
The UK’s top ten richest people are wealthier than the group has ever been, according to The Sunday Times. Their data finds that the cumulative wealth of the top ten billionaires in the UK has grown from £47.77 billion in 2009 to £182 billion in 2022 – an increase of 281 percent.
As the chart shows the UK’s billionaires have seen a steady, and fairly steep, incline in their wealth since 2008 crash.
This growth continued despite the pandemic, which saw UK’s economy shrink by 20.4 percent in the second quarter of 2020.
George Dibbs, the head of the Center for Economic Justice at the Institute for Public Policy Research said: “As we enter a once-in-a-generation cost of living crisis, the Sunday Times rich list shows us again that vast wealth often begets more wealth. That has proved particularly true during the pandemic, when the wealthiest accumulated more wealth than poorer people, who saved nothing.”
Yesterday, it was revealed that fifteen years of wage stagnation has left British workers £11,000 worse off a year, according to research shared exclusively with BBC Panorama.
The Resolution Foundation, which focuses on low-to-middle income families, examined what wages might be today if growth seen before the 2008 financial crisis had not fallen away.
The Resolution Foundation calculated that had wages continued to grow as they were before the financial crash of 2008, the average worker would make £11,000 more per year than they do now.
You might agree with this tweet?
“This is where we are. This is why we’re on our knees.”
Related: Rees-Mogg’s Brexit claims pulled apart in viral video
