ABSTRACT
If increasing inequality has been the experience of the world as a whole over the last 20 years, the same is true within Britain. The report of the Rowntree Foundation's Inquiry into Income and Wealth, published in February 1995, showed how the UK's economic growth over the past 30 years has been distributed. 1 In the period 1961–79, the incomes of the poorest 20 per cent of the population grew at or above the average rate for society as a whole, while those of the top 20 per cent rose slightly more slowly than the average. From 1979 to 1992, average incomes in Britain rose by 36 per cent, with those of the richest 20 per cent growing faster than this (the top 10 per cent by over 60 per cent). But the incomes of the poorest 20 per cent of the population failed to rise at all, and those of the bottom 10 per cent actually fell by 17 per cent.
