Thatcher era began rise of the richest, without any improvement in growth

Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979. From that moment the richest 1% and 10% saw their share of national income rise. Yet the UK's GDP rose no faster than other comparable nations.  We saw no benefit from "rewarding" the richest.

Data taken from the Paris School of Economics's World Top Incomes Database (Alvaredo, F., Atkinson, A. B., Piketty, T. and Saez, E)

Gross Domestic Product per capita by Purchasing Power Parities (in international dollars, fixed 2005 prices). The inflation and differences in the cost of living between countries has been taken into account. Source organisation: World Bank. Data downloaded from Gapminder

To see other of our reports on inequality, see...

History shows left/right policies grow the economic cake equally. The difference is only in how the cake is divided

Outsourcing public services: a case of privatised profits, socialised losses