Today, The Equality Trust released its second quarterly Research Digest – a review of what the wider academic literature is saying about income inequality and its effects.
Issue #2 focuses on trends & measures of income inequality. In brief:
* UK income inequality increased by 32% between 1960 and 2005. During the same period in Sweden it decreased by 12%.
* The growth in UK inequality in the last 30 years has been driven by the top 1% of wage incomes.
* Inequality measures drawn from standard household surveys underestimate income inequality by as much as 10 percentage points, due to the under–representation of the top 1% of incomes.
* There is scope for governments to tackle inequality, it need not be inevitable. Sweden owes its lower levels of inequality to policies introduced since the 1950s.
Read the second Research Digest: trends & measures of income inequality
This series is part of our ongoing commitment to exploring the evidence about the impacts of income inequality on societies. Our next Research Digest is due to be published in the autumn.
With best wishes
Kathryn Busby
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Policy & Campaigns Manager
Co-director of The Equality Trust
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