Unearned income has often been treated differently for tax purposes than earned income, in order to redistribute income or to recognize its qualitative difference from income derived from productive work. Such a tax structure is often associated with a progressive income tax structure. Supporters argue that extraordinarily high incomes are unearned incomes, with the example of the United Kingdom, where income taxes on the highest brackets reached 98% in 1979. In recent times the pendulum has swung the other way, and most Western countries tax unearned income more favourably than income from productive work for a number of reasons, including an expectation that much of this income ends up being recirculated into the economy, through things like spending or reinvestment.