It’s true – here’s the data to prove it
There’s no denying that in London we live in a bubble. Our city has everything, so there’s sort of no need to look elsewhere, am I right?
We barely felt the recession, while our counterparts in the north and the devolved nations are a long way from recovery.
When it comes down to it, we really have no idea what’s going on outside the home counties.
So it might come as a surprise to many that London’s poorest areas are richer than the wealthiest areas of Wales and Northern Ireland, according to the Office for National Statistics. Let that sink in.
The ONS took families’ income after taxes, benefits, and national insurance contributions and used it to compare averages across the UK by area.
When looking at disposable income by household, London’s poorest area, Barking & Dagenham and Havering was better off than Powys, Wales’s richest area, and Outer Belfast, Northern Ireland’s richest area.
The richest area of London, Westminster, is nearly four times richer than Leicester, the poorest area of the UK.
Regional disparity is getting worse in the UK, with a report by think-tank Centre for Cities earlier this year showing a two-tier economy was being created in Britain.
However, the figures by area do not show the full picture. London’s boroughs are typically very mixed, with some of the most wealthy people living just streets away from some of the poorest. It also doesn’t take into account the cost of housing – by far the biggest cost for many people.
Take a look at the figures:
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