UK Living Standards
The average person will now have to spend £38 less after tax each month than they would at the end of 2024, after three quarters in a row of falling living standards in the UK.
Government Objectives
The government declared “improving living standards across all parts of the UK” as one of its key objectives to achieve before the next election. The last parliament between December 2019 and July 2024 was the first in Britain’s history to see a real fall in disposable income.
Disposable Income
Disposable income, adjusted for inflation, is now £1 a month lower than it was in summer 2019, and more than £20 lower than in December 2019. Disposable income is the money people have left over after paying taxes and receiving social benefits. Essential expenses such as rent or mortgage payments, council tax, food and energy bills all need to be paid from disposable income.
Historical Context
Before 2022, there was only a five-year period in which living standards fell, between 2008 and 2013, after the financial crisis and the austerity policies that followed. Since the 1950s, there have only been five other cases in which disposable income fell for three quarters in a row. Three of them took place in the 2010s, the others in the early 1960s and late 1970s.
Economic Shocks
Simon Pittaway, senior economist, told that the UK’s mini-living standard rise will finally be over in 2024. The big problem facing Britain is that the country has experienced three unique economic shocks in less than two decades: the 2008 financial crash, Brexit, and the cost of living crisis/COVID. People in their mid- to late-30s have spent their entire careers sliding from one national crisis to the next.
Government Response
A spokesman for the Prime Minister said that living standards fell in the last parliament, but they are working to improve them. Real wages rose more last year than in the first decade of the previous government. The budget included help with energy bills, prescription charges, fuel tax, and rail fares, which is expected to help bring down inflation next year.
Future Outlook
Despite now three-quarters of a fall, living standards have risen overall since the new government took office, with rapid growth in the first six months continuing the trend seen in the final months of the outgoing government. However, inflation has risen, and the UK is now the fourth fastest-growing G7 country behind the US, Japan, and Canada.
Anti-Poverty Think Tank
After the Budget was published, the anti-poverty think tank predicted that living standards would fall by £850 a year over the course of this Parliament. They also said that some measures in the budget, such as lifting the cap on the two-child benefit, would make the decline in living standards for low-income households "less painful."
