Though the past few months of staggering oil prices, inflation warnings, and now recession have brought the high cost of working and living in the UK into sharp relief – is this anything new?
The past decade has seen widespread private and public sector wage stagnation, with the average UK worker seeing a real-terms three per cent pay cut over the previous decade and wages remaining below their 2008 peak.
To make matters worse, this year alone workers face another three per cent drop in cash as wages fall behind inflation, while the economy looks set to shrink for more than a year – prompting Labour to say the Conservatives are “losing control of the economy”.
The UK is unique in the developed world for paying its workers so poorly, being one of only five nations in the 35-strong OECD to see pay decrease over the past 10 years.
Meanwhile, data from HMRC shows that the pay for the top one per cent of employees and executives has continued to outstrip the lowest paid. Including bonuses, pay for the top one per cent has increased five times faster than pay for the bottom 10 per cent of workers.
What do you think? Are you paid adequately for the work you do? Let us know in the comments below.
The money to pay for these big pay packets does not come from nowhere. It comes from the surplus profit of their workers’ labour which has then been handed over to investors and bosses, rather than back to workers who face stagnating wage packets and rising prices.
So, if you had the chance to set your own pay at a realistic level, what do you think it would be?
Is your job already tragically underpaid and deserving a big boost, or, would you like to see others in your industry pay more?
Have bosses stripped British workers of their hard-earned cash so they can pay themselves a big bonus? Have your say down below.