Are London workers worth 'twice as much' to the country?

Question

According to this story, workers in London are worth twice as much as those in the poorest areas of the UK (which are named as Wales and the north east of England).

Is this a fair assessment, or is it another example of north-south sensationalism?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=564841&in_page_id=1770

Answer 1

Financial Capital of the World and plenty of high rollers, but they are in the minority. And living here i would say that's its not so much that we are worth twice as much but seem to be paying a lot more than anyone else, property prices here are staggeringly high, council tax, and many other things besides.

Answer 2

no its there choice to work there its expensive to live anywhere in country this is a life style choice so why should they get extra

Answer 3

fook off! what like Dave s who sits on his @rse all day on here? yeah he is such an asset !

Answer 4

I worked in the south east for most of my life and the money was great. Moved to the North East 5 years ago, and the money werent so great but then the cost of living was a lot cheaper, its evened out it the last couple of years though.

i dont believe there is a north/south divide anymore, however some workers continue to be paid on 'London rates' which enforces this belief there is a north/south divide.

Answer 5

I agree with lar614

HAZ: To know that, you must be on here all day too!

Answer 6

To (badly) paraphrase someone or other, "there are lies, damned lies and statistics" You can crunch numbers until you prove or disprove anything.

Apparently it is a mathematical impossibility that the bumble bee can fly.So there you go.

All those numbers in that article mean precisely nothing.

Answer 7

I think many ordinary Londoners are forced to work more hours and pay homage to higher targets and that capitalist 'drive' mentality. etc.  I also think that people at the top of their profession often end up in London, you'll often find the best college lecturers, psychiatrists, surgeons, chefs, even the taxi drivers have to learn thousands of roads and 30,000 points of interest six miles in every direction from the centre.  There are also plenty working here on minimum wage or very little above, how they survive I have no idea.

Answer 8

yeah and parts of london have some of the highest rates of unemployment in the country

a can of coke costs more in london selfridges than it does in liverpool tesco.  is the selfridges can of coke worth more?  no

Answer 9

What annoys me is the fact that the opinions of the south is mainly just the views of Londoners. It annoys me that they call all of us in the the West-Country 'in-breds' etc and Northerners 'thieves' etc etc when most of them have never been any where outside of the M25. What tops this off is after a life time of mocking us they then move over here.

They put our house prices up, ruin our pubs (we don't like gastro pubs) and do nothing but complain.

Bugger off back to London!!!

Man, i sound like a Yokel.

Answer 10

These sort of figures are unfair because they are an average, London is the financial centre and so contains some of the worlds highest earners which massively sways any average in their favour. If the "City" was in Edinburgh or Liverpool it would be there.