You've heard of a minimum wage... but how about a maximum wage?
A salary cap for top earners is one of the 'radical ideas' being put forward to create a society where wealth is distributed more evenly.
It's an idea that's been backed by the likes of former UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in the past.
It also comes amid concerns over how much billionaires such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos earn, with some of the world's richest people earning more money every minute than the vast majority of people earn in a year.
Luke Hildyard, Director of the High Pay Centre in the UK, spoke to Lunchtime Live about what it would entail.
He said: “It’s useful to dig into the thinking behind it by asking what is it that determines people’s level of prosperity?
“Think about it in terms of a pie: how much everybody gets depends on how big the pie is and how evenly it is sliced up.”
Mr Hildyard said these debates are particularly necessary now as the economy is going to be smaller for quite some time in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis.
He said: “If we want those in the middle and at the bottom to maintain their current living standards - let alone improve them… we’re going to have to do a dramatically better job of sharing things more evenly.
"We need radical ideas on how to redirect some of the money who have more than they need... to those who don’t have enough.
“Proportionally, the way we distribute things at the moment is not even efficient or sensible - let alone morally right. There’s great wealth in the world, and yet more people have more of it than they could possibly hope to spend."
'A utopian ideal'
Mr Hildyard said people do deserve to be rewarded for running successful businesses and creating jobs.
However, he said it's important to ask whether there should be a limit to such rewards when many, many others are working equally as hard to simply make a living.
He said: "Does having this good idea of selling books on the internet entitle [Jeff Bezos] to having a greater wealth than the entire country of Ukraine, for example?
“Certainly in the UK - and I’d imagine this is very true in Ireland as well - most of the people who are struggling to feed their family, cover the costs of their heating bills or put a roof over their head… are going out and working hard themselves every day, taking risks, and doing the best they can for their families."
Mr Hildyard said they absolutely accept this is "quite a utopian ideal", and they don't envisage it being enacted anywhere at the moment.
However, he said his own organisation has carried out research - a 'thought experiment' - looking at the kind of changes a maximum wage could bring for people.
He said: “For example, if you capped pay at around £200,000 in the UK… that'd [cover] a shade under 1% of the population... [around] 80,000 earners. But it would mean a pay rise of around £1,500 for around nine million people.
“Even those supposedly losing out… they’d still be earning eight times the UK national average salary, making the kind of money year in, year out that would enable you to afford multiple properties, foreign holidays, luxury cars… a lifestyle generally beyond the wildest dreams of any normal person."
He said he believes people across society would be a lot happier if wealth was more evenly shared - stressing the idea is the "politics of proportionality rather than the politics of envy".
