Immigration and the Top 1 Percent

Using administrative data on the universe of UK taxpayers, we study the contribution of migrants to the rise in UK top incomes. We show migrants are over-represented at the top of the income distribution, with migrants twice as prevalent in the top 0.01% as anywhere in the bottom 97% of taxpayers. These high incomes are predominantly from labour, rather than capital, and migrants are concentrated in only a handful of industries, predominantly finance. All of the observed growth in the UK top 1% income share over the past 20 years has accrued to migrants.