Interesting Facts

According to a study, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, teenagers in the UK would be more likely to study maths at A-level if they were told what salaries it would help them earn in the future. (Telling students that pupils who received the information on graduate earnings were 39 per cent more likely to study maths than those who did not. Now if they could only convince them that maths could get you onto the X-Factor, and help you become famous, the take up would be 100%.)

According to a study compiled for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, couples with two children  now need just under £40,600 between them to afford a decent lifestyle. (The biggest problem is, the actual cost of living in the UK has risen five times as much as earnings since before the recession. So, £40,600 is enough to provide ordinary food, clothes, and leisure activities, for a small family, as well as items judged necessary to survive in modern Britain, without extravagance.)

According to researchers at Princeton University people earning £100,000 and £150,000 are year are no happier than those earning £50,000. (The reason is probably the strain placed on high earners, which means they don't have the time to actually enjoy the fruits of their labours.)

The median salary in the UK is £20,801. (The average salary is £26,020, and for full-time employees, that figure rises to £31,323. The top 1% of salaried earners, earn over £118,027, and people who earn £150,000 - the amount that triggers 50% income tax - are in the top 0.6%. Interestingly, in 1654, Oliver Cromwell was paid a salary of £70,000 a year. Kind of puts things into perspective really.)

According to a report by the National Audit Office, the chief executive of CDC Group, Richard Laing, is paid £970,000 a year. (What's amusing / annoying is that the CDC is the Commonwealth Development Corporation, a government-owned body which helps to tackle poverty in developing countries. I think giving some of his wages to poverty stricken countries might be helpful.)

In 2000 first generation immigrants to the USA earned 20 percent less than the typical non-immigrant worker. (In 1970, recent arrivals earned around 1.4 percent more than their non-immigrant counterparts, and 1940, new immigrants were earning almost 6 percent more than non-immigrant workers.) Source: PEW Economic Mobility Report

powered by ODEO According to a United Nations report called "State of the future", in 2007 25% of the world's population were living on less than $1 a day. (Thankfully this is down from 1980 when 40% of the population were doing so, but I'm afraid that that is probably more to do with inflation than philanthropy. My premise is that if you can't pay a living wage to someone, do the work yourself. Anything else is slavery.)