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Last update - 15:17 29/04/2008 Report: Inequality grows as top 1% earns same as bottom 25% By Ido Solomon and Motti Bassok, TheMarker Tags: Israel, inequality  According to a report by the Adva Center for Information on Equality and Social Justice released Tuesday, inequality has risen sharply in the past decade. Today, the top percentile in Israel earns more than the bottom 25% of the workfore. In the year 2000, employers accounted for 68% of the national income and employers contribution (their "operating surplus") accounted for 10%. By 2007, while the national income had grown, employers accounted for 62% and employees contributed 13% (similar to figures for the two years prior). Advertisement Meanwhile, Finance Minister Roni Bar-On is expected to tell the government Tuesday that he plans to cut taxes for the rich in coming months. These include reduction of VAT by 0.5% to 15.0%, which will cut state revenues by NIS 1.5 billion, and lowering the maximum personal marginal tax (which includes income tax, National Insurance and health tax) from 47% to 40% and company tax from the current 27% to 20%, in 2012. "Worker's slice of Israel's national income has been falling for two decades, and what workers have lost, employers have gained", Etti Konor-Attias, a staff member of the "Workers, Employers and Distribution of Israel's National Income" wrote in the annual report. Wage figures also reflect substantial gaps. Workers per-hour wages increased during the period 2003-2006 by just NIS 0.20. The average annual wage of an executive of a corporation traded on the stock exchange rose during the same period by about NIS 500,000. Ashkenazi men make the most There have been a multitude of headlines about decreasing unemployment rates in the past few months, and indeed, in 2007 more than 100,000 new workers joined the ranks of the employed, about 70% full-time. Another encouraging piece of news is the 10% decrease of part-time workers compared with 2001. Although unemployment is dropping, there has been an increase in the number of long-term unemployed workers: in 2007 about 40% of unemployed workers had been seeking work for more than six months. "The condition of unemployed workers worsened because of stricter conditions on entitlement to unemployment stipend," says Konor-Attias. "In 2007, the National Insurance Institute paid just 47% of the amount paid in 2001, even though there were far fewer recipients." Equality ends in the upper percentiles The most surprising figure in the reports reveals that the entry level for the top percentile of monthly income is about NIS 32,000 - a wage that any systems engineer in a high-tech company with five years experience will earn. According to the report, the salaries of 7% of all national income in 2006 were paid to lower percentile of wage earners, earning less than NIS 3,515 monthly. A similar percentage - about 6% of the national income - was paid to upper percentile salary earners, but while the first group included about one-quarter of all wage earners, the second group included just 1%. While 1.7% of all male workers are included in the top percentile earners, just 0.2% of all women are included. Equality between Jews and Arabs begins with low wage earners: about one quarter of all Jews and one quarter of all Arabs earn low salaries. But equality ends in the top percentile of wage earners: whereas 1.1% of all Jews earned top percentile wages, only 0.1% of all Arabs did. Ashkenazi (European) and Eastern Mizrahi Jews also have common ground in lower percentile wages. About 22% of second-generation Mizrahi Jews (whose fathers were born in Asia or Africa) are low wage earners, and 20% of all second-generation Ashkenazis. On the other hand, 2.6% of all Ashkenazim are high wage earners, compared with just 0.7% of all Jews of Mizrahi origin. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Hamas on the Holocaust Al-Aqsa TV claims Jews concocted the Holocaust. Grasping genocide How a non-Jew in Israel came to understand the Holocaust.   1.   Tenth percentile, 2oth percentile etc. 14:48  |  Yonatan 29/04/08   2.   32K Salary 15:31  |  EL 29/04/08   3.   Reduced VAT DOES help the poor! 15:37  |  Jonathan 29/04/08   4.   What A Surprise In Our Free Market 16:59  |  Prince 29/04/08   5.   Time For A Change 17:39  |  B`Galil 29/04/08   6.   System Engineers Do Well 17:44  |  ODP1 29/04/08   7.   Finally Some Israelis Have Money 18:09  |  Chayim Phillips 29/04/08   8.   A lot better than in the USA 20:52  |  Mark Lincoln 29/04/08   9.   Parasites grow... 21:49  |  Ulf 29/04/08   10.   Mr. Lincoln - I think your facts are way off 22:28  |  B`Galil 29/04/08   11.   To #8 The bad trend is the problem 09:34  |  Ulf 30/04/08   12.   Gee, maybe beebs can fix it up some more! 16:07  |  Bob 02/05/08

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