The scale of Britain’s living standards slowdown over the past 20 years is so large that a typical family today would be £20,000 richer had incomes continued at the rate of growth trending in 2005 say the Resolution Foundation Think Tank
The Think Tank founded in 2005 say the living standards challenge facing Britain today is starker than ever.
Since 2005, typical incomes for working-age families have grown by just 7 per cent – not per annum but over the entire 20 year period.
This is a dramatic collapse from the 35 per cent growth recorded during the decade before (1995 to 2005). Had this continued, the typical family income today would be £51,000, rather than its actual level of £31,000.
Some groups have fared better than others. Over this period, pensioner incomes have grown by 21 per cent and owner-occupiers by 14 per cent, while the incomes of working-age families in private rented accommodation have increased by just 4 per cent.
Overall, the story of the last twenty years has been one of a remarkably broad-based collapse in living standards, which can only be addressed by getting at its root cause – a lack of productivity growth in the British economy.
Ruth Curtice, Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation, said:
“Over the past 20 years, the Foundation has helped to put living standards at the centre of political debate in Britain. And that’s where they belong given the scale of the living standards slowdown across Britain, which has cost the typical family an astonishing £20,000 a year.
“As we look ahead, the task of raising living standards across Britain is bigger than ever – we simply cannot afford any more stagnation. This makes the work of the Foundation even more urgent as we redouble efforts to push for sustained family income growth.
Clive Cowdery, Founder of the Resolution Foundation, said:
“I look back on the past 20 years since our formation with a mix of delight and fear. I’m delighted the Foundation has put low-to-middle income families front and centre of British political debate and has played a key role in virtually eradicating very low hourly pay.
“But I feel continued fear that the problem we were established to resolve – the existence of a permanently precarious group of working people, forever denied the rising prosperity that others enjoyed – has got worse, not better. This makes our economy weaker, and our society and politics less stable. Resolving this lies at the heart of our renewed mission over the decades to come.”
