IAS Book Launch: Uncomfortably Off: Why the Top 10% of Earners Should Care About Inequality
07 June 2023, 6:00 pm–8:00 pm

Join us for an evening celebrating the publication of Uncomfortably Off: Why the Top 10% of Earners Should Care About Inequality by Marcos González Hernando and Gerry Mitchell.
This event is free.
Event Information
Open to
- All
Availability
- Yes
Cost
- Free
Organiser
-
Institute of Advanced Studies
Location
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IAS Common Ground, G11Ground floor, Wilkins buildingUCL, Gower Street, LondonWC1E 6BTUnited Kingdom
Current debates on inequality tend to focus either on billionaires and their capacity to shape society or on the very poorest, and for good reason. This book puts the spotlight instead on a larger segment of the well-off, the top 10%. This group encompasses the bulk of the professionals and managers at the helm of the institutions that shape society and is, interestingly enough, both ubiquitous and near invisible.
Earning around £60,000 per year qualifies you for the top 10%. However, we find that most of its members do not feel particularly wealthy or secure, fear downward mobility, and rarely have a sense of where they sit in the income distribution. Most of them are much closer to the median earner (on £30,000) than to the 1% (£180,000), yet in surveys and interviews we find that this group is particularly receptive to meritocratic discourse and a majority are opposed to higher taxation and welfare.
In their book Marcos González Hernando and Gerry Mitchell argue that, as they struggle to maintain the standard of living that they have enjoyed for their children and as they face manifold crises (from global warming to mental health epidemics), they will either seek to further isolate themselves from the rest or reach out, in the understanding that their worries are not that different to those of the median earner. They want to make the case for the latter.
Respondents will be Stewart Lansley (Bristol) and Siobhan Morris (UCL).
About the Speakers
Marcos González Hernando
Marcos González Hernando is Honorary Research Fellow at the UCL Social Research Institute, Postdoctoral Researcher at Universidad Diego Portales and Adjunct Researcher at the Centre for the Study of Conflict and Social Cohesion (COES) in Chile.
Stewart Lansley
Stewart Lansley is the author of The Richer, The Poorer: How Britain Enriched the Few and Failed the Poor, a 200-year History (Bristol University Press, 2021). He is a visiting fellow at the University of Bristol, a Council member of the Progressive Economy Forum and an Elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.
Gerry Mitchell
Gerry Mitchell is a freelance policy researcher, working most recently for the Think Tank for Action on Social Change (TASC), the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES); and the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS). In 2019, she stood as Labour's Parliamentary Candidate in Woking, where she also chairs local groups of Compass and Make Votes Matter and in 2022 opened the Canalside Community Fridge.
Siobhan Morris
Siobhan Morris is Head of Programmes for UCL’s Grand Challenge of Justice & Equality. She has published widely on intersectional inequalities in the UK, including for The Independent, UCL Press, The Conversation, and Times Higher Education and is lead author of Structurally Unsound: Exploring inequalities - Igniting research to better inform UK policy. She is also co-founder of the Structural Inequalities Alliance.