Fred Wadsworth is a hospital porter and lives with his wife and family in a council house in Manchester. His wage is E40 a week. Erlend Copeley-Williams negotiates assurances and he and his wife and family own a country house in Essex. His salary is £9,500. Five years ago we looked at the lives of these two families and asked how far down the road we were to the Utopia of ' bread for all before cake for any'. The answer was we still have a long way to go. Now, five years later, we ask are the Wadsworths better off and the Copeley-Williamses worse off? Or are they both worse off? It seemed a straightforward question, but, as Jeremy James discovered, the answers were far from simple - and far from what might have been expected.