Thanks go to a Vox Political reader for passing on the link to this article.

NOTE: This article has attracted some criticism from readers who think the figures are inaccurate because the figures should be median and not mean averages. I have bad news for those readers:

Having gone into the figures provided by the Office for National Statistics, if you strip out the top 10 per cent, a close approximation of the median average pay earned by the remaining 90 per cent can be found by checking the fifth decile, which was £12,872 for the financial year 2013/14. If you want to argue about £97, feel free, but I think you’ll be arguing about the difference between that rough figure and the actual average.

There are other variations. For example, the article has the median average wage of the top 10 per cent at £79,196 but the ONS puts it at £82,899.

Median average earnings for the whole working population is £26,500, according to the Equality Trust, the High Pay Centre and the government, but the ONS had it at £24,564.

Median average for the bottom 10 per cent was just £1,036, according to the ONS, while the median average for the bottom 20 per cent was £5,521.

The article is accurate – or at least, as accurate as it is able to be.

The Equality Trust and High Pay Centre has average pay for UK workers calculated as £26,500. However, average pay conceals the reality for millions. For instance, the top 0.1% are earning a few pounds over £1 million a year and the top 1% are earning an average £271,888. What this figure hides is the fact that the top FTSE chief executives are earning an average of £4.3 million and it takes them just 2.5 days to earn the average annual workers pay. These statistics do not include other successful groups such as self employed entrepreneurs. The top 10% of UK workers earn £79,196. But the truth here is that this also includes the earnings of the top 1%, meaning the next 9% don’t really earn that figure. What is grotesque is the next number that should shock everyone. The average pay of the next 90%, (by stripping out all earnings of the top 10%, including the 1% and 0.1% groups) leaves an annual income of just £12,969. Yes, you read that right. Stripping out the top 10% of average pay, leaves just £12,969 average pay for the remaining 90% of the population. What is interesting about the figures collated by the Inequality Trust is that the data is about two years old (not their fault – it’s what is available), so things will actually be slightly worse as all analysts agree that inequality is getting worse, not better.

Source: The Truth About Poverty In Britain Is Much Worse Than You Think | Global Research – Centre for Research on Globalization

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