In Uncomfortably Off, Marcos González Hernando and Gerry Mitchell examine Britain’s top 10 per cent of earners, arguing that growing inequalities negatively affect them in terms of anxiety about jobs, pressure to keep up with their peers and vulnerability to crises. According to Ivan Radanović, the authors effectively show how the inequalities resulting from hyper-capitalist policies disadvantage high earners along with more vulnerable groups, making a strong case for progressive taxation and greater investment in public services.
LSE hosted the authors at a panel event to launch the book in 2023. Watch it back on YouTube.
The study of inequalities has become a crucial academic field, with increasing data collected on long-term inequalities, including in the Middle Ages. In current debates on inequality, most attention has focused on the top one per cent and those with the lowest incomes. The former group (the one per cent) have benefited the most from global growth since the 1980s, which a 2016 paper from Lakner and Milanovic made clear. As Piketty and colleagues have shown, when the top one per cent is divided into more discrete parts, the proportional increase in their accumulation of wealth is steep: the richest 0.001 per cent experience the highest rise, then 0.01 per cent, and so on. This is a political issue: the rich have the capacity to influence politics and undermine democracy. In Uncomfortably Off, Marcos Gonzales Hernando and Gerry Mitchell expand their remit to analyse how the top 10 per cent of earners are impacted by widening inequality, based on interviews they conducted in 2020 with 110 respondents, most of whom are from the UK.
Who are the top 10 per cent?
According to Revenue and Customs (HMRC)’s survey of personal incomes, as the authors point out on page five, the threshold of the top income decile was £58,300 a year, earned by engineers, IT specialists, HR managers, accountants, etc. A majority live where the best-paid jobs are concentrated and where there is a high cost of living – mostly in and around London.
Regarding social roles, for the authors, the top decile is “significant for understanding how inequality works and is maintained” (4). This group includes almost all British MPs, the top echelons of government, others high up in the media and political parties and judges. This implies that the top 10 per cent are certainly influential. This group is affluent, but only in absolute terms. Relatively, even at the top five per cent threshold (£81,000) one is still further away from those in the top one per cent (£180,000 and over) than from the UK’s median income (£26,000). That is how inequality works.
At the top five per cent threshold (£81,000) one is still further away from those in the top one per cent (£180,000 and over) than from the UK’s median income (£26,000)
The book’s main argument is that growing inequality of income and wealth is starting to hurt many within the top decile. They should be doing well, but feel discomfort due to anxiety about jobs, pressure to keep up with their peers, and not feeling attached to where they live.
Rising anxieties
As the authors emphasise early in Chapter Five, there seem to be record highs in all the wrong things: global temperatures; inequality; the cost of living and the profits of the suppliers of key resources (like supermarkets) and waiting times for health services. This is followed by record lows in all the good things: life expectancy, real wages and productivity growth in the lowest deciles, and the state of public services.
There seem to be record highs in all the wrong things: global temperatures; inequality; the cost of living and the profits of the suppliers of key resources (like supermarkets) and waiting times for health services
This book centres on how emerging challenges affect high earners and their self-perception in a changing world. The authors explore the effects of critical events and the structural crises. These critical events, besides precarity of work and housing, form a web of anxieties of the top earners about the country’s future and of their children. Many respondents cited feeling under pressure to work additional jobs so they can live in expensive neighbourhoods and provide a better future for their offspring.
Brexit had a corrosive impact: placing the unity of parties over national interest made citizens feel unrepresented by politics. The referendum exposed the socioeconomic and generational divides: older, conservative people from declining areas voted Leave while younger, more affluent sections of the population voted Remain. Since the Leave vote won out, the top 10 per cent are more pessimistic.
Years of privatisation and disinvesting in public infrastructure left the UK with one of the worst Covid records in the world (103). Meanwhile, the government’s £37 billion test-and-trace scheme achieved none of its aims. High earners are less vulnerable to the worst consequences, but their insulation contributes to ignorance of the broader context.
According to the OECD, the UK is the major economy most affected by the Ukraine-Russia war. Energy disruptions and inflation shrank consumer spending and confidence. Nevertheless, the Truss and Sunak governments wanted to impose further austerity that would hurt poorer households far more than richer ones.
Cultural left, economic right
As the authors suggest, the class position of the top decile represents an obstacle to being better off – both for them and for society. Many have jobs whose purpose is in service of, or supports and protects, the wealth of the top one per cent: accountants, corporate lawyers, hedge fund managers, many academics and others who work for organisations that are owned or funded by the wealthy. It is also a consequence of the dominant economic narrative about who creates value, as Mazzucato (2018) explains. That narrative concentrated high earners’ attitudes on the economic right, possessing mild support for redistribution. Regarding the welfare state, most are in favour of means testing. Economic conservativism goes along with socially liberal attitudes towards immigration or same-sex marriage.
Also, their beliefs undermine inequalities reduction. As a first major barrier, the authors identify how high earners explain social mobility. Most of the respondents emphasise their part in their successes, which is the result of their actions, skills, work ethic, and, mostly, education, ie, a meritocracy. What this attitude ignores is that the higher the inequalities are, the less social mobility has to do with education.
The flip side of this meritocratic view is the belief that some are “undeserving”– that if the best climb to the top, those who don’t are left behind for a reason . This renders other people’s bad outcomes acceptable, normalising inequality. The more we think of ourselves as self-made and self-sufficient, the harder it is to care for the common good.
To imitate the consumption and lifestyle patterns of those above them, people [in the top decile] tend to overspend. The authors note that, by December 2018, UK households had been net borrowers for 27 months in a row.
With this attitude, high earners tend to be upward-oriented, and that is the reason why they feel pressure to perform. Comparing themselves with those who are richer makes them feel bad about themselves. So, to imitate the consumption and lifestyle patterns of those above them, people tend to overspend. The authors note that, by December 2018, UK households had been net borrowers for 27 months in a row. Savings are very low, and debt is high. This implies that understanding inequalities becomes harder when people do not have contact with people from other socioeconomic groups: “When you look out from a bubble, the world looks meritocratic and more equal than it is” (155).
Towards greater equality
This is a book about how what is normal is getting radicalised, and what is radical is being normalised. Markets have become embedded in our social and democratic choices so much that we have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society.
Markets have become embedded in our social and democratic choices so much that we have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society.
The authors suggest that high earners should change their expectations from the state. Firstly, they should question the status quo, as the employees’ share of national income has fallen from 70 per cent to 55 per cent since the 1970s. Falling living standards have nothing to do with how hard people work, just as rising corporate profits have little to do with their CEOs’ productivity. High earners should use public goods and services and maintain the social tissue, since they also benefit from public transportation, safer streets, and a healthier, better educated society. For the system to function, it should be supported, making a case for progressive taxation.
The authors invite the top ten per cent to consider a future in which they can give up their distinction from others to eventually become less anxious, isolated and more secure.
From all of this stems the most interesting feature of this book: its effort not to indicate the passivity of high earners, but their potential to facilitate social change. The authors invite the top ten per cent to consider a future in which they can give up their distinction from others to eventually become less anxious, isolated and more secure. This is part of broader changes to mitigate inequalities and climate breakdown, for which Global North, including the UK, should bear the most responsibility.
Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
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