Today I read a study – A Bit Rich – published in December 2009 by the New Economics Foundation, which is a UK-based think tank aiming to provide an alternative narrative to mainstream economics. That agenda obviously interests me. The study investigates the relationship between pay and value by taking a case study approach and extending our concept of value to include both social and environmental benefits and costs. What they find is that the financial sector is a negative contributor (by some) to society whereas low paid occupations (cleaning etc) are vastly underpaid. What this tells me is that we need a fundamental re-alignment of pay scales in addition to bringing real wage growth into line with productivity growth. We need to reduce the real take of some of the higher paid occupations (especially in the financial sector) and increase the rewards of those currently trapped in low-paid jobs but who serve valuable functions in the overall scheme of our societies’ well-being.