To be serious about inequality for a moment

The Office of National Statistics has just released figures on incomes in the UK. Giving us that interesting little chart above. Do note that that is income of those who are in the tax system. And also that it does not include the impact of the benefits system. So this doesn't include subsidy to housing or anything like that. And then have a look at the global rich list. Where you can plug in an income and the country to which it refers and see where that income in that country puts you on that global rich list. The reason you must add the source country is because they are calculating using PPP adjusted currency rates. That is, they're taking account of how much things cost in each country. So this isn't really a comparison of incomes, it's a comparison of living standards.

And here's the astonishing thing. That bottom 1% lifestyle in the UK is still among the top 20% globally. The UK minimum wage puts you well into the top 10% (almost top 5% in fact). And a little over median wage puts you into the global top 1%.

To repeat, this is not assuming that things are cheaper in other countries. This is after we convert to the prices you're paying at Morrisons.

We've nothing at all against those who would campaign about either poverty or inequality. But we would like to take this little opportunity to remind all that by any historical or global standard we here in the UK, yes even the relatively poor by local standards, are living pretty high on that income scale. And that feeds in to what we think is the important point about what we might want to do about inequality or poverty. Let's concentrate on that global picture, not gaze at our own navels. Encouraging poor country growth wit the aim of abolishing absolute poverty seems to be so much more productive to us than worrying about whatever gap there might be between the top 20%, top 10% and top 1% of the global income distribution.