Hi ,

Inequality has got worse, and the impact of it is being felt across all parts of life, all over the world. That was the conclusion of Professors Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson in our new Spirit Level at 15 report, which updates and expands the original thesis of the Spirit Level. Working with our Senior Research Officer Aini Gauhar, they explored inequality's impact on the climate, on health, and on democratic societies, giving more evidence to what many of us had long suspected: our growing inequality is unsustainable.

That's why we've contacted every new MP to offer them briefings on inequality, helped constituents for 1/3 of our MPs across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland contact them about inequality, and are sending printed copies of The Spirit Level at 15 to each MP. We need those in power to understand the crisis we're in, but more than that, we need them to build the will to take real action. We're pleased, for example, that the new government is acting on the evidence from our Your Time, Your Pay report that we gave to their manifesto consultation. They have instructed the Low Pay Commission to change the minimum wage so that people aged 18-20 aren't paid sub-minimum wages for the same work; something we'd called for in the report.

But as hard as we're lobbying those at the top, we can't build equality from the top-down. We're working hard to entrench the ideas of co-production and grassroots leadership, so that the people most affected by inequality's impacts are the ones shaping the debate.

How has the nature of inequality and the movement changed over the last 15 years? You said:

• "The conversation, when it happens, seems to be focused on poverty as a separate category, rather than as society as a whole. Also, there seems to have been an upsurge in 'deserving poor' and 'hard-working families' rhetoric, as well as an unfettered neo-liberal focus on growth, dribble-down economics, and material/consumerist ideals which pull in the opposite direction to the equality/equity ethos. This week, however, a pay deal has been agreed for previously striking resident doctors, and the Refugee Ban has been overturned, hinting that a less divisive future is possible."
  
  
• "Issues like the cost of living crisis and the failure of water companies have highlighted the way that inequality impacts on people's everyday lives. It's no longer a concept limited to academic or political discussion, but something which people are increasingly realising effects them."
  
  
• "I live in a conservative, rural area and it often feels like a sisyphean struggle. The lack of funding means our services have had to shrink despite the demand growing. The lack of community feeling also makes it hard to bring up inequality. it feels like many people don't want to think about others in the community as "they have it hard as well"."
  
  
• "Awareness of global warming has given the issue of inequality a global. Nationally, there are now writers and theorists - eg Monbiot and Klein - who are able to link inequality to the influence of neoliberalism economic and political ideology."
  
  
• "There is a greater feeling that there is no other way. Unfairness has become more hard-wired into society. Inertia appeared to be the order of the day but in fact, inequality got worse. Political decisions, such as austerity have been portrayed as somehow essential for the good of the country. Currently there is the 2-child benefit cap controversy, at a time when the Royal Family are due to receive a 53% pay rise, against the back-drop of a huge Labour majority.

  Debate within the movement, meanwhile, has covered a wider ranging succession of issues."

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