social enterprise

This article is provided courtesy of the news feed at http://www.newstartmag.co.uk/news

People who earn more don't necessarily work harder, the private sector is not necessarily more efficient than the public and high salaries don't always reflect talent.

Those are some of the key findings from an independent think tank report, which also reveals lower-paid jobs involve more valuable work.

A bit rich - calculating the real value to society of different professions challenged some of the most enduring theories surrounding pay and work by studying six different jobs.

Three were on low salaries – a hospital cleaner, a recycling plant employee and a childcare worker – while the others were highly paid – an advertising executive, tax accountant and a City banker.

Using the principles and valuation techniques of Social Return on Investment analysis to quantify the social, environmental and economic value each role produces, the New Economics Foundation (Nef) was able to look beyond how much different professions are paid and instead identify what contribution they made to society.

‘The least well-paid jobs are often those that are among the most socially valuable – jobs that keep our communities and families together,’ says the report. ‘The market does not reward these kinds of work well and such jobs are consequently undervalued or overlooked.’

Wage inequality is at the heart of the rich and poor divide, says Nef, which it describes as a ‘corrosive and destabilising issue that is linked to a range of social problems’.

The report offers a series of policy recommendations aimed at reducing the inequality between different incomes, as well as reconnecting salaries with the value of work, including:

• Ending the ‘policy silence’ on high pay
• Building social and environmental value into prices (of products and services)
• Launching a green industrial policy
• Introducing more progressive taxation
• Radically reforming the role of the City