If all the wealth in the UK were split evenly amongst inhabitants...

[eurasa]

Where would we all sit?

If the assets/money of the 68 million inhabitants were collated and split between us all (for arguments sake let's say adults only, but trying not to get into the tiny specific semantics here), how much would we all get?

There are so many people with no assets and living in poverty, but then there are a number of people with such outrageous wealth.

I guess I'm asking where the mean would come out at.

(Just following a conversation between DH and I, who don't know economics enough to make a good suggestion! Not a journalist!)

I doubt that those people who have worked hard/made good investments/paid lots of tax /probably donate to charities would be too happy to have big chunk of their hard earned ripped away and given to a bunch of workshy idlers
I certainly wouldn't (if I was rich) 😉

A lot of wealth is inherited as opposed to making good on investments & wealth planning is normal used to lower your tax burden as much as possible. Equally people who aren't rich aren't necessarily workshy idlers 🙄

An interesting thought experiment.

for scotland alone total wealth is £1,097 billion divided by 5.46 million people in scotland comes to around £200,000 each. I know you asked about UK and adults but I only realised that after I'd calculated and I have to go out now.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/totalwealthingreatbritain/april2018tomarch2020

Median wealth in GB was £302,500 for 2018-20.

Who knows but it’s communism and doesn’t work

as can be oppressive and disincentivises creativity, hard work and enterpreneurship - why work hard if you don’t have to because you will only get the same as Mr X down the road

What would happen when a year later some people have spent everything and others have saved or invested and made more?

Start all over again?

All the OP asked was how much it would be if split fairly! She didn’t suggest a communist revolution or suggest it be given to “workshy idlers”.

It's a really good question OP and I think some people are missing the point

Sounds like it'd be enough for everyone to be very comfortaby middle class

And once the wealth has been equally distributed, who's going to work and do what jobs?

What incentive will there be for anyone to work at all?

The rich will re-build their wealth and we'll all be back to square one but with a country with even fewer people working than now.

The country would collapse.

Expect after the initial distribution within a year there would be inequality again because some people are more entrepreneurial, more skilled, more educated or more savvy than others.

Then you would have to do the whole exercise again, at which point no one would really bother working as what would be the point, the median would fall very low and suddenly you'd have a poor economy.

Also, those making the rules would still make sure they had more than everyone else, like the pigs in Orwell's animal farm haha

Ah yes capitalism definitely works though.

Who cares about people suffering in poverty as long as a few can have private jets and the average Joe can buy a new iPhone on credit.

90% of success in capitalism has nothing to do with intellect or hard work though. It's more so how much are you willing to exploit others and ruin the environment to satisfy your own greed

Its an interesting question and I'd like to see the maths!

My guess would be at least 100,000 per person which is amazing when you think how many people have sod all.

Anyone else like to guess a figure before someone works it out?

Quite. Money grows money all you really Nedd is some investment advice

People who don't value money will still loose it and those with more skill or gift will use theirs to make more.

To resolve the housing issue consider - the Crown Estate owns 678,420 acres (274,550 ha). Approximately 55% of the UK's foreshore is owned by the Crown Estate. Even if they sold 50% of these lands their great-grand children will still be wealthy. (+ no inheritance tax). Yet people are conditioned to frown one the lowly commoner who buys a property to secure a pension for himself or help his family. The press will never mention this. In fact they'll tell you how hard they work and how much they deserve all the land, houses, staff and more.

90% of success in capitalism has nothing to do with intellect or hard work though. It's more so how much are you willing to exploit others and ruin the environment to satisfy your own greed

Well there’s your answer then.
No need for anyone to be poor.

Sadly for some to be very rich some need to be poor. For some reason many people seem to think that's ok and capitalism is great

I don't know but I think it would be less than you think. I always think that when people talk about individual rich people who are worth say 820 million which is JK Rowling's net worth, if she shared it with everyone in the UK it would be about £11 each!

The average amount of disposable income per capita in the UK is currently £32k.

So, if wealth were split equally, every person in the UK would have £32k disposable income, because this is the avert. Rather than 10% of people having a hundred times more than that, and most people having far, far less than that which is how it actually is.

Hear hear.

"avert" = average

£300,000 median??? That's a massive amount if money. Half the population is worth more than £300,000😵

I'd guess the mean - which is what you are after if you want to spread it evenly - will be higher than that as people may well be worth 3 times that, but hopefully there are vanishing few with over half a million of debt.

Not everyone who is rich has worked hard.

Not everyone who is poor is a workshy idler.

I suspect that the amount per person wouldn't be that much, eg £100 bn divided by 68 million is about £1500 each. A lot to a very poor person, but hardly life changing, it's about a month's salary for someone on NMW.

OP: I have a maths question.
MN: Your idea is stupid and won't work.