James is hard to like. It’s bad enough that he earns so much. Indeed, as a high flyer in banking, his total income in 2022 was a cool £500k (some of that a generous end-of-year bonus). But what rankles is that when James sits down with his boss to talk about next year’s pay, he only requires a fairly modest (in percentage terms) 6.9 per cent pay rise to maintain the same spending power he’s enjoyed over the last 12 months.
At the other end of the income distribution, consider Steve and Tanya. With three kids, they have a combined household income of around £35k. Tanya needs a whopping pay increase of 12 per cent – nearly twice as much as James – to maintain their standard of living. That’s despite the fact that more than half of their total household income comes from the Government.
