Inequality and the State

That Britain became more unequal in the last quarter century is well known; the scale of change, less so.At the end of the 1970s, the richest tenth received 21 per cent of total disposable income. This rose to 28-29per cent by 2002-03, as much as the whole of the bottom half. More than half of this increase was accountedfor by the top one per cent, and most of this by the top half a per cent. Whatever one’s opinion of this, thenumbers involved are very large: two-fifths of the total real increase in personal incomes between 1979 and1999 went to the top ten per cent; more than a sixth went to the top one per cent; and about an eighth went tothe top half a per cent. Partly as a result, after two decades of stability, the distribution of wealth becamesharply more unequal after 1995. By 2001, the shares of the top one per cent and the top ten per cent ofmarketable wealth-holders appeared to be as great as at any time since the early 1970s.[...]