NOT a poll of City workers...
There is lots of pick up for a ComRes poll for the St Paul's Institute this morning City workers tell St Paul's survey that traders, bankers and FTSE 100 bosses are overpaid reports the Mail's This is Money, 75 percent of City of London financial professionals surveyed by ComRes for a study by the St. Paul’s Institute agree that the wealth gap is too big says Businessweek, City workers say 'wealth gap too wide' reports the BBC, City Workers Agree They Are Paid Too Much, St Paul's Institute Report On Ethics Shows reports HuffPo.
One might easily go away with the belief that this is a poll of people working in the big financial institutions of the City of London, and that even the people actually receiving huge City salaries think they are being paid too much.
It is not - it is a poll of people working in the financial sector within Greater London - that is, it will include people working in normal high street banks or insurance companies, financial advisors, etc, across the whole of London, not just the big investment banks and financial institutions in the City of London itself (There was also some sort of filter by seniority, though I haven't been able to pin down what it was, but presumably it means it doesn't include bank clerks, secretaries, etc)
ComRes's own tables are clear on this (so is Andrew Hawkins who I mailed earlier just to make 100% sure I was right and wasn't making an arse of myself!), and beyond its title, the St Paul's Institute's report correctly refers to the poll covering financial professionals in London. If you look at some of the actual articles written about the poll, later on in the text they also correctly refer to the sample being of people working in the financial sector in London, but it is not the impression that is given by the articles. The problem seems to be a case of putting 2 and 2 together and getting 5. It's a poll about financial professionals in the City of London, asking financial professionals in London, and lots of people have overlooked the difference between Greater London and the City of London, and all which that implies about those being asked.
Ultimately, while there are some people working in financial institutions in the City recieving huge salaries, there are also lots of people working in the financial sector who receive perfectly normal salaries. And while it is worth noting that what we think of as the "City" isn't necessarily in the City, lots of it is in Canary Wharf for example, there is a world of difference between dealers earning 100k+ in the City itself thinking they are overpaid, and somebody working in a bank in Croydon thinking that people who work in the City are overpaid.
