This question was prefaced by another: “To create a fairer economy during the Covid recession, it has been argued that a maximum wage should be put in place to create new jobs and to spread money more evenly across the economy. Other people argue that a limit on high earners’ salaries would reduce incentives on productivity. Would you support a maximum wage?” 54 per cent said “yes”, 29 per cent said “no” and 17 per cent said “don’t know”.
The survey was used by the High Pay Centre and Autonomy, both think tanks, to indicate widespread public support for the concept of redistributing pay. Their study, published earlier this month, argues that mass lay-offs would not be necessary if the highest paid earned less. They suggest that a cap of £187,000, which would cut the pay of just the top 0.6 per cent, could finance a minimum wage of £10.50 an hour and provide pay rises for 3m workers. You can find their interactive models, which can be played with to demonstrate the impact both overall and on different sectors of the economy, at https://autonomy.work/portfolio/payratios.