PRESS RELEASE 18 October 1999

Rich and poor growing further apart in the capital

Despite a boost to the lowest paid from the minimum wage this year, the gap between the richest and poorest in London is huge and still growing. New figures from the Low Pay Unit show how the wealth of the city exists side by side with poverty and deprivation.

Average hourly pay in London, at £13.38 for a full-time employee, is a third higher than for Britain as a whole, but some of the lowest paid workers and most deprived areas in the country are in the capital, next to the very richest.

Pay

• London had as many people who were due a pay rise from the minimum wage this April as Glasgow, Birmingham and Liverpool put together.
• The borough of Havering has the lowest average pay. At £8.57, it is lower than Wales, Scotland, Tyneside or Merseyside. Annual earnings there are £18,498, compared to £43,288 in the City of London and £35,080 in Westminster.
• Six London boroughs have lower average pay than England (£10.16/ hour): Bromley, Enfield, Havering, Merton, Newham and Waltham Forest
• The gap between the top and bottom earners grew between 1998 and 1999, as it has done since the late 1970s. The top tenth in London earn nearly four times as much as the bottom- £875 compared to £230 per week. This gap is £190 bigger than the one for the rest of the country. Among men in non-manual jobs the gap is £897 per week.
• Men in London in manual jobs earn just 12 per cent more than those in the rest of Britain, despite much higher housing and travel costs.
• Women in the capital earn just over three-quarters of men's hourly wage- £11.38 compared to £14.65 for full-timers

Incomes and poverty

• Five of the ten most deprived wards in England are in London
• Disposable household incomes are only 15 higher than the UK average, with Londoners spending over 30 per cent more on housing.
• There are 204,000 people on unemployment benefits in the capital, chasing 32,000 jobcentre vacancies. At 7.3 per cent, the unemployment rate is higher than every other region except the North East, Northern Ireland and Wales.
• Poverty has a real cost for the health and welfare of the people not sharing in the city's wealth. In the most deprived fifth of wards in London, long-term illness is 23 per cent greater than average. The death rate is 25 higher than expected if national rates were to apply.

For further information: Nick Burkitt or Alison Balchin, 0171 713 7616/ 0788 764 3750