Hey. We’re new to Twitter. To open our account, we’ve analysed what MPs earned - in addition to their salaries - in the last Parliament. MPs declare such earnings, but in a super unstructured way. So, we’ve written some code to create a neat dataset of all their declarations.
Since the last #GeneralElection, MPs have earned £8.4 million in addition to their parliamentary salary (an average of £12,900 per MP).
Over half of this £8.4million was earned by just 15 MPs.
#BorisJohnson earned the most, nearly £800,000. That’s equivalent to an additional £27,440 a month. The other 14 top-earners were all men too…
#BorisJohnson earned the most, nearly £800,000. That’s equivalent to an additional £27,440 a month. The other 14 top-earners were all men too…
..which reflects a broader #genderpaygap. The average female MP earned £3,350 in addition to their salary. The average male MP earned £17,360 – over 5 times as much.
Why such an enormous pay gap? Well, partly because women spent less time earning additional income. The average female MP worked an additional 25 hours in the last Parliament, compared to 89 for male MPs.
But women often also earned less for performing the same type of activity. For all but TV/Radio appearances, they earned less per hour.
There could be many reasons for that. The lower rate for surveys suggests female MPs may have spent more time doing similar tasks. It is also possible they had less experience in cabinet posts; affecting the rate they received for speeches, for example. Further research necessary
There are also notable differences when you look across parties. #Conservatives tend to earn the most, followed by #LibDems. #LabourParty MPs are amongst the lowest earners.
Combined, this means different types of MP made very different amounts in additional income. Male Conservative MPs earned an average of £27,895. Whilst Female Labour MPs earned an average of £1,563.
All this is available on our website: datalobo.com/mp-earnings/. Follow us for other analysis in the pipeline. For example, on which corporates make the most payments to MPs.
We also have data on donations to MPs (from cash to football tickets) and international trips. So expect posts on these themes, too.
Hat tip to @mpinterests making raw consolidated data available. This thread is probably relevant to data minded journalists and organisations such @TimHarford, @CCriadoPerez, @ECONdailycharts and @FullFact.
@mpinterests @TimHarford @CCriadoPerez @ECONdailycharts @FullFact Also looping in a couple of British politics journos – @ShippersUnbound @stephenkb , @MarinaHyde, @IanDunt, @helenlewis, @SamCoatesSky, @SebastianEPayne, @xtophercook
