Do people agree with the idea that everyone’s hard work should be rewarded on the basis of their contribution to our society and economy?

We asked this question of a nationally representative sample of 3,140 adults across Great Britain in April 2022 as part of a wider survey on fairness, and the results, shown here, showed that 71% agreed or strongly agreed overall.

As part of a wider survey in August 2022, we asked 2,000 adults across Britain to guess the current status of pay inequality in the UK. People significantly underestimated the difference in pay between large company CEOs and their average employees.

We then asked the same group of people whether they thought that the real figures for pay inequality were fair or unfair.

We asked half of the group whether they thought British society was fair or unfair before they had seen these figures, and the other half after seeing the figures. The percentage of people in the second group who thought British society was unfair was 27 percentage points higher than in the first group.