Less inequality – a popular choice

19 Sep 2010, by Richard Exell in Equality, Society & Welfare

A new opinion poll shows that, when they are asked how much different jobs should be paid, people tend to propose higher pay for the low-paid jobs and lower pay for the high paid ones.

The opinion poll was conducted by ComRes for Pay and Tax: The Radio 4 Debate, due to be broadcast tonight at 5.00. One thousand people were asked what they thought different jobs should pay. Some coverage has focused on the fact that footballers were accorded the highest ‘merit’ pay, but what I noticed immediately was the equalising tendency it revealed – for every job that is paid £30,000 a year or more, the public came up with a figure lower than the actual pay rate. For every job paid £25,000 a year or less they came up with a higher figure:

What workers in different jobs are paid and what the public think they should be paid

Taken from BBC News website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11350383

None of this is proof of what people ‘should be paid’ – my guess is that the public’s views are very influenced by what they think people actually are paid. (The high figure for footballers is probably because the average person probably has a more accurate idea of how much they are actually paid.)

But it is a useful corrective to the assumption you often come across, that egalitarianism is bound to be unpopular.