Growth in earnings has stalled, and stalled badly. They are still below 2008 levels, usually a rise of 2% a year is how we get better off over time.
Growth is down from previous forecasts and productivity will slow. The living wage, those on lower earnings and those on benefit have been protected. The top 1% have got richer and wage inequality is higher now than 40 years ago.
Inflation will increase and so will interest rates and with no earnings increase we will all be poorer. We are now living in a lost decade. The top 1% have seen income rise of 9% so the gap has grown.
Under 30’s are the worse off, income down 7%, while the over 60’s with an increase of 11% are better off. Home ownership rates at age 30 are half what they were 2 decades ago.
It is important to have some grasp of these facts to understand what is happening in Britain today.
Mind you I was a teenager during the seventies, the lights kept going off, the rubbish wasn’t lifted and no one wanted to do any sort of work. Since then we have had at least two property booms and crashes; loads of money and then none at all.
I suspect we just live in an entrepreneurial society which has boom and bust cycles. Or we could be like Russia and be bust and stagnant all the time.