The richest 10% of Britons are 850 times better off than the poorest 10% of UK population, according to a report by the National Statistics Office in the Great Britain.
British families in the second half of the welfare top have available cash, property and retirement funds equivalent to just 4,400 pounds, compared to 1.2 million pounds for the top 10 percent, as the large study is highlighting the inequalities existing in the UK, according to The Guardian newspaper.
According to the report, the poorest 50% of UK households have immediate access to cash worth £400 compared with £123,200 for the richest 10% of UK families.
Families are especially rich in London and southern England, and the likelihood to be headed by a person with higher education is three times higher than those in the second half of the wealth spectrum.
The largest gap between rich and poor is not about property, but about the retirement money. Office of National Statistics found that the richest 10% of Britons own property with an average worth of 340,000 pounds and have retirement savings of £742,000.
The poorest 50% of households don’t have real estate property and pension savings are an average of only 4,000 pounds. The research is the first in a series of studies on the welfare of different social categories, said the government institution.
The report assesses the cumulative wealth of the British population, including pensions, properties and savings at 10.300 billion pounds. The poorest 50% have less than one tenth of the wealth, compared to 43.8% for the richest 10%.
George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, is expected to announce a further reduction of tax incentives granted to rich people for contributions to pension funds with the result of increasing the revenues by up to 2 billion pounds. Mr Osborne said:
“We are still all in this together. Everyone must make a contribution to dealing with our debts, from the richest in our society to those living a life on benefits.”
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