According to the IFS paper, the richest 1% in Britain have seen the share of household income they receive almost triple in the last four decades, rising from 3% in the 1970s to about 8%. Average chief executive pay at FTSE 100 firms has risen to 145 times that of the average worker, from 47 times as recently as 1998. Earnings in the lowest-earning working households have barely risen since the mid-1990s, compared with greater increases for higher-income groups.

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