In an address to the Labour Society of the London School of Economics Professor Titmus revealed some interesting information about wealth in Britain and employment in the United States. Among the points he made were the following:
(1) In Britain today 42% of all private wealth is in the hands of 1% of the population, This is a greater concentration of wealth than existed in the United States even in the heyday of robber capitalism in the 1920s, when 1% owned 25% of private capital.
(2) During the 1930s there was a considerable decline in the concentration of wealth, Since the second world war, however, the trend seems to have been reversed and in the United States today the rate of increase of capital concentration seems to be double the previous rate of decrease.
3) In Britain today 1% of the population owns 81% of equity shares.
4) With permanent unemployment at over four million the creation of new jobs in the United States is only tending to keep the situation as it is. Between 1958 and 1963 some 4,300,000 new jobs were created without seriously affecting the permanent unemployment position. Of these new jobs only 200,000 came from the private sector while the rest were created by the expenditure of public money,