UK Labour leader suggests “maximum wage”

While most fair-pay campaigners focus on the boosting the lower end of the salary spectrum, UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has a different idea – this week, the top politician suggested a wage cap which would prevent people from earning “ridiculous” amounts.

“I think the salaries paid to some footballers are simply ridiculous, some salaries to very high earning top executives are utterly ridiculous,” he told Sky News. “Why would someone need to earn more than £50m a year?”

Corbyn wouldn’t specify just how high the national wage limit would be but said he anticipated it would be “somewhat higher” than his own £138,000 (CA$384,079) annual salary.

“I can’t put a figure on it and I don’t want to at the moment,” he said. “The point I’m trying to make is that we have the worst levels of income disparity of most of the OECD countries.”

The leader of the opposition also said he believed taxpayers would benefit from job creation as a result of lower executive pay.

“They would have less of their enormous pay levels and more would go back into the company and our society as a whole,” he said. “Economic development does benefit the taxpayer because more people work and get jobs and pay taxes. It’s something we’re looking at and learning from others.”