The Cost of High Pay in the UK

The UK High Pay Centre is an independent non-party think tank established to monitor pay at the top of the income distribution and set out a road map towards better business and economic success. They have just produced a compelling three-minute video showing that a FTSE 100 CEO takes home more in three days than an average employee earns in a year.

Details of the staff, trustees and advisory board of the High Pay Centre can be seen here.

The video is based on an analysis of high pay, available as an eight-page report: 'What Would the Neighbours Say?'

They find that the bottom 20% in the UK have incomes closer to Slovenia and the Czech Republic's bottom 20% rather than North-Western European norms, even though average UK incomes are in line with North-Western Europe.

For those who think only a handful of people get paid super-high salaries and so it 'doesn't matter', think again. If the income distribution of the Netherlands or Denmark applied to the UK, 99% of households would benefit to the tune of £2,700 each on average.