Financial inequity greater now than since the 40s, says academic

INEQUALITY in the UK is at its worst since the Second World War, with the richest one per cent of people taking home 15 per cent of the country’s income, a Yorkshire academic said yesterday.

Danny Dorling, a professor in Sheffield University’s geography department, said in 1979 the best-off took just six per cent of all income, with the country’s wealth spread more evenly at that time.

Prof Dorling will today present his findings at the Royal Statistical Society’s Beveridge Lecture in London which is held annually in memory of the architect of the welfare state Sir William Beveridge.

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Speaking ahead of the event, Prof Dorling said: “If we look back about 100 years, we can see that inequality in the UK did drop significantly in the 70 years from 1910 to 1979.

“More than half of that drop in inequality took place prior to 1939. Since 1979 these inequalities have risen dramatically and continue to rise.

“The last time the best-off took as big a share of all income as they do today was in 1940, two years before the publication of the Beveridge Report, which became the basis of the UK’s welfare state after the Second World War.”

Prof Dorling’s research focuses on improving the understanding of the changing social, political and medical geographies of Britain and further afield, concentrating on the effect of social and spatial inequalities on life chances and how these may be narrowed.

He has also written and edited a number of influential books in the field of social inequality, including You Think You Know About Britain? and, more recently, Fair Play: A Reader on Social Justice.

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