In the UK today, earnings inequality is substantially higher than it used to be. Weekly earnings for a worker at the tenth earnings percentile, meaning someone who earns less than 90% of workers, rose by around 70% between 1980 and 2019.
By contrast, weekly earnings for a worker at the ninetieth earnings percentile (meaning someone who earns more than 90% of workers) rose by more than 100% during the same period. At the same time, a growing proportion of people in poverty in the UK are in a household with someone in paid work. This suggests that simply being in work may not be enough to guarantee that a family has enough income to live on.
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