1. Duncan Exley Director www.equalitytrust.org.uk twitter: @equalitytrust

4. FTSE 100: average pay (red area) compared to CEO pay (blue area)
1997
2012

6. Health and Social Problems Worse in More Unequal Countries
Index of:
Life expectancy
Maths & Literacy
Infant mortality
Homicides
Imprisonment
Teenage births
Trust
Obesity
Mental illness – incl. drug & alcohol addiction
Social mobility

7. Health and social problems are not related to average income in rich countries
Worse
Index includes:
Life expectancy
Maths & literacy
Infant mortality
Homicides
Imprisonment
Teenage births
Trust
Obesity
Mental illness (inc. drug and alcohol addiction)
Social mobility
Index of health and social problems
Better
National income per person ($)
Source: Wilkinson & Pickett, The Spirit Level (2009)

8. Valued or devalued? More inequality More superiority and inferiority
More status competition and consumerism
More status insecurity
More worry about how we are seen and judged
More “social evaluation anxiety” (threats to self-esteem & social status, fear of negative judgements)
Source: Wilkinson & Pickett, The Spirit Level (2009)

9. What kinds of stressful tasks raise stress hormones most?
Cortisol response (effect size)
Tasks with ‘social evaluative threat’ (uncontrollable)
Other tasks
Dickerson SS, Kemeny ME. Acute stressors and cortisol responses. Psychological Bulletin 2004; 130(3):
Source: Wilkinson & Pickett, The Spirit Level (2009)

10. Health
Mental health
Physical health
Infant mortality
Healthy life years - cost

11. Crime & Violence
“The link between economic inequality and both property crime and violent crime is well established”
“Economic inequality affects violence by influencing the way we think, act and relate to others”

12. “a correlation between low scores in maths and reading and inequality”
Social mobility
“it is likely to be very hard to increase social mobility without tackling inequality”
(“Social Mobility: A Literature Review”; Crawford, Johnson, Machin, Vignoles; 2011, BIS)
“a correlation between low scores in maths and reading and inequality”

13. Social cohesion & participation
“Unequal societies have lower rates of both social and civic participation (including lower engagement with political parties)”
Damage to community cohesion
(H Jordahl “Inequality and Trust” IFN Working Paper No. 715; 2007)

14. Children
Educational attainment
Family
Attitudes to work and society

15. Economic impacts of inequality
Instability & crises
Debt
Regional
Decreased productivity
Warnings on inequality:
IMF
OECD  

16. Democratic impacts of inequality
Lower voter turnout
Distrust of institutions (public and private sector)

17. Public Attitudes
82% of the public say “the gap between those with high incomes and those with low incomes” is “too large”
(British Social Attitudes Survey, Released 2013)
Median answer to how much more should the person running a large company be paid than a shopfloor worker = 6 times
(British Social Attitudes Survey, Released 2010)

18. Fairer, Stronger Businesses
UK: Higher proportion of low-skilled jobs than all OECD except Spain.
UK: 5th-highest proportion of low-paid jobs in OECD.
Regional inequality:
Median earnings, UK: £22,044
Median earnings, E.Midlands: £20,890
Median earnings, London: £27,999

19. Policy Responses Local “industrial policy”.
Leadership: internal practice, procurement, ambassadorship.
Progressive spending as a correction to regressive taxation.

20. Our main proposal: A goal:
That the net impact of policies will be to reduce the gap between the richest and the rest

21. Duncan Exley Director www.equalitytrust.org.uk twitter: @equalitytrust