According to the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), the average earnings of people working full-time in the town rose by a whopping 16% last year to £28,000.
There is a growing literature on the financial impact of cancer [ 5, 8, 41, 42] largely as a response to the increasing numbers of cancer survivors, and awareness of the long term implications of loss of earnings among those of working age.
In fact, if the cap was based on average household income rather than workplace earnings of a working family it would sit at £31,500.
According to generally accepted formulae, these could have exceeded $10m, given the earnings of many working in the World Trade Centre.
In no small part, that is because the median earnings of men working full time have not increased in real terms since the early 1970s.
In the 1960s and '70s, the report states, the earnings of someone working full time, year round at the minimum wage were enough to lift a family of three above the poverty line.
Mr Osborne's latest attack on benefits is already less popular than a previous pledge to restrict the entitlements of any family to £26,000 the median post-tax earnings of a working household.
Some studies considered only the earnings of a working head of household, for instance, whereas others tallied the total earnings of all members of a household which could shrink any estimate.
In 2006 the total earnings of the working membership of the guild was $905 million dollars.
