If it makes you feel any better, this is the first time since 2011 that FTSE 100 bosses had to work a fourth day to reach the milestone
As you were probably just clocking on to work Friday, the bosses of Britain’s biggest companies had already made more money than the average UK worker will in the entire year, a report has found.
According to the High Pay Centre (HPC), by 9am on the fourth working day of 2022, Britain’s top earners had already pocketed most people’s entire salary on an hourly basis.
The HPC, a thinktank that campaigns for fairer pay for workers, has been analysing the gulf between FTSE 100 chief executives and everyone else, and released its findings in a blog post on Friday.
Its calculations are based on a previous HPC analysis of CEO pay disclosures in companies annual reports, combined with government statistics showing pay levels across the UK economy.
FTSE 100 bosses were paid £2.7m on average in 2020, which is the latest full-year figures available.
This works out at 86 times the £31,285 average salary for full-time UK workers, according to Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures.
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Most FTSE 100 companies have not yet announced CEO pay for their financial year ending in 2021, but 57 per cent of those that have, recorded an increase on 2020 levels, the HPC report said.
While the pay gap revelation may alarm some workers, the HPC noted that “this is the first time since the High Pay Centre was founded in 2011 that CEOs have needed to work into a fourth day in order to make the same pay a full-time worker would make in a year”.
The 2020 figures for FTSE 100 pay were down 17 per cent from £3.25 million the previous year, “in light of the temporary pay cuts and bonus cancellations many companies announced during the initial lockdowns following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic”, the HPC said.
Gary Smith, the general secretary of the GMB union, which represents 600,000 workers, tweeted that the figures showed that FTSE 100 bosses were paid 173 times the amount collected by carers who risked their lives on the frontline of the Covid pandemic.
A care worker has to work 173 years to earn the same money an average CEO scoops in 12 months. 😡
Fat cat bosses trousering 173 times more than the carers who look after our loved ones is a disgrace.
GMB is campaigning for £15 an hour in care.
Agree? Like and retweet now. pic.twitter.com/Yfvk1eyzfp
— GMB Union (@GMB_union) January 7, 2022
The HPC carried out polling with Survation on the public’s view regarding high earners and how they make their money and found that 77 per cent of people agree that high earners have had advantages in life such as more expensive education, family money, and connections; 71 per cent agree that high earners benefit from government policy more than low/middle earners; 59 per cent disagree with the statement that high earners do more valuable work than low/middle earners and 63 per cent disagree with the statement that high earners work harder than low/middle earners.
Read the full High Pay Centre blog post here.
