Tuesday 05 August 2008
Ipsos MORI research has found that high earners over-estimate average earnings in the UK, and believe that their earnings are far nearer to the average than they in fact are. Discussion groups with top city earners investigated their attitudes to wealth and taxation, using questionnaires on their own and other people's earnings.
This group thought that the gap between rich and poor should be reduced, and they were willing to consider a range of ways this could be done - even, potentially, higher taxation.
Key findings from the study, sponsored by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Barrow Cadbury Trust, include:
- City workers think £20,000 is a low income, twice what the public as a whole consider to be 'poor'
- They are happy to take on a greater proportion of the UK's tax burden in the cause of better redistribution, but they don't want the overall tax take increased, and they don't trust the Government to be able to do it.
- They don't support raising benefits to reduce the poverty gap.
Sarah Castell, Head of Qualitative Research at Ipsos MORI, commenting on the research said:
" We assumed, before the research, that high earning professionals might be quite knowledgeable about relative incomes. In fact, this research reveals that high earning people are the same as the rest of the population, tending to put themselves nearer the middle than they are. This is important for policymakers because it means high earners express many of the same concerns as the rest of the public. They have a sense that the UK is suffering because of widening income inequalities - but they do not believe that altering the taxation system will have a real effect."
The research has formed the basis of a new book, Unjust Rewards by Polly Toynbee and David Walker, published later this month.
Download the Opinions of High Earners report
Ipsos MORI contact
Sarah Castell - email