The Equality Trust has today published its annual Wealth Tracker. It aims to make sense of the huge increase in wealth of the richest in society by providing comparisons with recognisable household items and bills. 

This year it finds that the richest 1,000 people have more wealth (£576 billion) than the poorest 40% of households (£496 billion). Last year they saw their wealth increase by a staggering £28.508 billion, the equivalent of nearly £78 million a day, or £901 a second.

The Equality Trust has found that just this increase in wealth could:

• Pay a year’s rent for over 3 million households. Cost = £28.508 billion
• Provide 1,821,131 jobs paid at the real Living Wage, for a year, or 1,031,217 jobs paid at an average salary. Cost = £28.508 billion
• Pay 20 years’ worth of grocery bills for all of the UK’s users of food banks. Cost = £28.265 billion
• Cover 10 months’ worth of energy bills for all 25.6 million British households. Cost = £27.71 billion
• Pay everybody in England’s council tax bill for a year. Cost = £26.1 billion