ARE YOU A HIGH EARNER?
What income would look like if the UK were 100 people
AQUARTER of people earn less than £15,500 a year - and only a quarter earn more than £34,500.
That is the stark truth about living and working in the UK today.
While people often quote the national average wage, that figure disguises the fact that incomes are unevenly distributed above and below that point.
One way of visualising the true distribution is thinking about the UK as a nation of just 100 people, and asking how much they would earn.
One person would bring home a hefty income of over £162,000, which is 15.7 times more than the person with the lowest earnings.
The 25 people with the lowest incomes would earn less than £15,500, and 42 people would bring in less than £20,000. Just 50 people would have an income of £22,400 or more. Only 32 out of 100 people would earn above £30,000, and to be one of the top 25 with the highest incomes you’d have to take home at least £34,500. There would be 81 people with an annual income of under £40,000, and 89 people would earn less than £50,000.
Three people would earn more than £100,000, but 56 would have an income of less than a quarter of this, at £25,000 or lower.
To move from the person with the lowest income to the person with the 10th lowest, you’d need an additional £1,900 per year. But to shift from the 90th richest person to the richest, you’d need more to find more than £110,600 along the way. A backbench MP with a basic income of £74,962 would earn more than 95 people, while there would be 49 people earning less than a newly qualified nurse, who would have a starting salary of £22,128.