The Guardian view on the 1%: all gain, no pain | Editorial
This summer marks 10 years since the beginning of the financial crash in the UK, when depositors lined up outside branches of a small British bank, Northern Rock, to withdraw all of their savings as quickly as possible, particularly since everyone else was doing the same. This led to the UK's first bank run in 150 years. The global crash that followed saw panic, which seemed a prudent reaction. When the dust settled, it was clear the elites had failed to anticipate the near-apocalyptic events. They had placed too much faith in market liberalisation, deregulation and tax cutting that benefitted the very wealthy disproportionately. In an instant everything changed. Yet nothing did.
As research for the Resolution Foundation this weekend shows, the rich are back. While the rest of society have shared in an equality of misery following the crash, the top 1% - households with incomes of 275,000 - have now recovered all the ground they lost during the world's worst post-second world war slump. The share of income going to the very richest is now 8.5%. That's double their share in 1985. The question has to be asked: has the value of the 1% in society doubled in the last 20 years? What have all these higher earners - in the City or in the boardrooms - done that has been so socially useful to see their share of total wages go up so much?
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