{"id":305149,"date":"2025-03-16T07:16:46","date_gmt":"2025-03-16T07:16:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=305149"},"modified":"2025-03-18T08:08:30","modified_gmt":"2025-03-18T08:08:30","slug":"britain-no-longer-a-rich-country-after-living-standards-plunge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=305149","title":{"rendered":"Britain \u2018no longer a rich country\u2019 after living standards plunge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tim Wallace \u2013 The Telegraph March 12, 2025<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Britain is no longer a rich country after 15 years of stagnation \u201ccaused UK living standards to plummet\u201d, according to economists, leaving parts of the UK worse off than the poorest parts of nations including Slovenia and Lithuania.<\/p>\n

Economic growth and productivity have lagged behind a host of other nations<\/a> since the financial crisis, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr) said, as it called on the Government to raise the threshold at which workers start to pay income tax in an attempt to boost performance.<\/p>\n

The typical British worker would be \u00a34,000 per year better off if productivity growth<\/a> and wages in the UK had matched those of the US, said Max Mosley, economist at the Institute.<\/p>\n

\u201cEconomic stagnation over the past decade is now threatening the UK\u2019s position as a place for a high standard of living. A combination of weak productivity growth driving near zero growth in real wages and cuts to welfare has resulted in a situation where we are neither delivering prosperity through high wages nor security through welfare,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat the poorest in our country now fare worse than those in nations once considered less affluent is a stark indictment of the UK\u2019s economic social model.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Mosley asked whether Britain is still a rich country, declaring that \u201cthis question \u2013 which was easy to answer for centuries \u2013 is now less straightforward\u201d.<\/p>\n

Parts of Birmingham and the north east of England<\/a> are worse off than even the poorest parts of Slovenia and Lithuania, Niesr found, as nations that once made up the Eastern Bloc become increasingly prosperous.<\/p>\n

The average Slovenian\u2019s living standards are now almost on a par with the typical Briton\u2019s, the think tank said, in a stark indication of the UK\u2019s relative economic decline.<\/p>\n

Britons\u2019 average real earnings have risen by less than 3pc since 2019 after taking inflation into account. They are up just 6.6pc since 2007 at the start of the financial crisis, Niesr found. By contrast, real earnings rose by almost 20pc between 2000 and 2007.<\/p>\n

Adrian Pabst, deputy director at Niesr, said the situation is even worse for those in the least affluent areas, with a \u201cdramatic collapse in the living standards of the poorest 40pc in society\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cThe Government\u2019s mission to grow the economy is not just about aggregate numbers but about higher living standards in every part of the country. It is vitally important to raise public investment in ways that unlock business investment to generate productivity increases and sustained real wage growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

That should include tax cuts, Mr Pabst said, adding: \u201cThe Government should revisit its decision to delay the uprating of the personal income tax threshold until April 2028. After more than 15 years of real wage stagnation for millions, working families need to see a tangible improvement in their living standards over the duration of this parliament.\u201d<\/p>\n

Niesr also suggested ending the two-child limit on benefits as the most cost-effective way to reduce poverty, as well as boosting productivity by slashing barriers to building by reforming the planning system.<\/p>\n

However, some of these changes may prove difficult to finance. Abolishing the two-child limit would cost the Government \u00a32bn per year, providing an \u201cessentials guarantee\u201d for benefit claimants is priced at \u00a37bn, and raising the income tax personal allowance would cost more than \u00a310bn.<\/p>\n

All of this comes when the public finances are under pressure from higher borrowing costs and weak economic growth as well as demands for more defence spending, all of which may force the Chancellor to make cuts to other parts of the public sector in her Spring Statement later this month.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Study finds Parts of Birmingham and the north east of England are now worse off than even the poorest parts of Slovenia and Lithuania<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":305146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-305149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Current_Affairs","category-Economics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=305149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":305150,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305149\/revisions\/305150"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/305146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=305149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=305149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=305149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}