LONDON (Reuters) -Rising asset prices have widened the wealth gap between the most well off 10% of British households and the average, a think tank said on Wednesday, highlighting the country’s growing wealth inequality.
The Resolution Foundation, which focuses on issues facing lower- and middle-income Britons, said the richest 10% of households held around half of total assets, little changed since the 1980s.
But rises in prices for assets – chief among them property and private pension savings – had made it harder for average earners to catch up.
Household wealth for an adult in the wealthiest 10% of households in 2020/22 was on average 1.3 million pounds greater than that for someone in a household in the middle of the wealth distribution, compared with 1 million pounds in 2006-08.
The most recent difference is equivalent to 52 years of average income, up from 38 years.
The wealth gap between people in their early 30s and their early 60s had more than doubled to 310,000 pounds, it said.
Molly Broome, senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, said the data showed the likely fallout of any move to increase taxes on wealth which some politicians from the ruling Labour Party want in finance minister Rachel Reeves’ November budget.
“We need to be honest that higher wealth taxes are likely to fall on pensioners, southern homeowners or their families, rather than just being paid by the super-rich,” Broome said.
The report was based on an analysis of official data first published in January.
London saw the sharpest rise in inequality since 2006-08 due to fast house price growth in the city where property wealth is the most unevenly distributed in Britain, it said.
($1 = 0.7442 pounds)
(Writing by William SchombergEditing by David Milliken)
