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Rich-poor gap 'has doubled in past 30 years'

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-20 13:38

The study by the TUC union found that while disposable income for the wealthiest in society has risen to more than ￡700 a week, that of the poorest has only gone up marginally - and is still less than ￡200.

It claims more Britons are living below the breadline than 20 years ago, and that no other European country has such a gulf between rich and poor.

The report also claims inequality dramatically affects children's chances in life, with babies born to poor mothers more likely to develop health problems in later life, and working-class pupils half as likely to get five good GCSEs as their wealthier classmates.

It comes just a day after the Conservatives accused Gordon Brown of making Britain a less fair place over the past decade by overseeing a widening gap between rich and poor in health, education, living standards and tax.

The TUC is now calling on the Government to put an extra ￡3billion into benefits in order to meet its pledge of eradicating child poverty by 2020.

Its general secretary, Brendan Barber, said: "We need to take action to reduce inequality now. The causes of inequality are widespread, but the remedies for inequality are far clearer – raising the skill levels of those without qualifications, and tackling the gender pay gap would be a good start.

"All the evidence shows that countries with a greater degree of equality also have more social mobility."

The TUC's report, called Poverty and Inequality and Children, draws on official data from the Office for National Statistics, Eurostat and HM Revenue and Customs as well as reports from academics and charities to show how inequality has grown in recent decades, and how it harms the health, education and well-being of children.

Its figures disclose that household disposable income for the poorest 10 per cent of society was ￡130 a week in 1979, and had only risen by around ￡50 to ￡181 by 2006.

However, disposable income for the richest tenth rose from ￡407 a week to ￡733 over the same period.

Meanwhile, the proportion of people in poverty - earning less than 60 per cent of the national median income - has risen from 13 per cent to 21 per cent in 2004.

The union said this showed that "the gap between the top tenth of the population and the bottom has roughly doubled since 1979".

It added that inequality in Britain - using an statistical measure known as the Gini coefficient - is higher than the average for European Union countries and is only matched by that in Ireland in Italy.

The TUC report goes on: "At every stage, poverty and inequality harm the life chances of children."

It quoted data from scientific studies to show that poor children are more likely to weigh less at birth and are at greater risk of dying as babies and suffering developmental problems. Poor nutrition and accommodation are also likely to lead to asthma, meningitis and stress, it claims.

Meanwhile in education, 32 per cent of children of manual workers attained five GCSEs at A*-C grade in 2002, compared with 77 per cent of the children of professionals.