People in the North East have the lowest wage packets in the country - according to a shocking new map.
Based on Office for National Statistics (ONS) data from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earning, the new map, produced by the Reach Data Unit, shows how the country's lowest wages are in the North East - where the median pay is just £31,200. Across the UK, last year the median annual full-time wage rose by 5.8% to £34,963, while the median weekly salary increased by 6.2% to £681.
But wages are much higher in some parts of the country than others. Median annual pay is actually also higher in Scotland (£35,518) than it is in England (£35,106), Northern Ireland (£32,879) or Wales (£32,371). And in the Engish regions, the figures show a distinct "North-South divide".
Workers in London earning the highest annual pay packet (£44,370), followed by the South East (£34,963), and East of England (£34,833). The lowest wages are in the North East (£31,200), followed by the East Midlands (£31,634), and then Yorkshire and the Humber (£31,920).
The ONS figures are based on a 1% sample of full-time jobs taken from HM Revenue and Customs’ Pay As You Earn (PAYE) records and they illustrates huge differences between the wages of people living in the UK’s best and least-paid council areas.
The map shows how in areas such as Gateshead (£579), South Tyneside (£598) and Sunderland (£598) the median wage for full time workers is actually less than £600 a week. By comparison, people in the London borough of Tower Hamlets has a median weekly wage of £1,120. The figures are similar for County Durham (£600), Northumberland (£608), North Tyneside (£619) and Newcastle (£640).
Outside of London, the highest annual wage is in Three Rivers in Hertfordshire. While the lowest wages in the country are in Oadby and Wigston in Leicestershire - at just £470 a week.
The ONS believes median pay - the amount which 50% of jobs fall below - is a more accurate measure of average earnings than taking the mean amount, which can be skewed by a small number of very high-paid jobs.
Last week, prior to the election the Trades Union Congress published research revealing how there had been a a 44% increase in child poverty among working households in the region during the last 14 years.
The TUC said that more than one in four children in working households here was now growing up below the poverty line. Wes Streeting, Labour’s new health secretary, then called the figures a “damning indictment on 14 years of Conservative government”.
In-work poverty has been a huge issue in the North East for several years now, with child poverty hitting record levels here. A series of reports have also shown how the inequality faced in the North East has a profound impact on both our health and our wealth.
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