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Do we need to do more to reduce very high top incomes?

A blog by Luke Hildyard on our 2021 CEO pay report featured as a LinkedIn talking point

Our analysis of CEO pay and the pandemic is out today – showing median FTSE 100 CEO pay fell by 17% last year to £2.7m

It’s appropriate that executives share the experience of wider stakeholders, such as workers being furloughed or losing jobs, customers enduring limited services or shareholders’ seeing the value of their investment shrink. So lower pay than last year arguably reflects the system working as it should.

On the other hand, this still represents millions of pounds spent by companies on small numbers of people who are already multi-millionaires at a time of immense economic hardship and uncertainty for many others, including some of their own employees.

The UK is one of the most unequal countries in the developed world. Do we need to do more to exert further downward pressure on very high top incomes?