In much of the UK, people’s incomes are well below the EU average – in some areas by as much as a third. In the map (above) Britain’s poorest regions are highlighted, showing how far below the European average incomes have fallen. The Cornish, for example, are 36 per cent less well-off than the EU norm. Families in Slovenia meanwhile are just 16 per cent poorer – and in Portugal 23 per cent.
. Seven areas of Britain poorer than ANYWHERE in France or Germany
. Welsh Valleys is one of the Continent’s poverty blackspots
. Poles, Lithuanians and Hungarians wealthier than the Cornish
. Outside London, only Home Counties and Aberdeen keep up with Germany
EXCLUSIVE By Tom Mctague, Mail Online Deputy Political Editor
Parts of Britain are now poorer than Poland, Lithuania and Hungary, official figures reveal.
People in the Welsh Valleys and Cornwall – Britain’s two poorest areas – scrape by on less than £14,300 a year on average.
Because Britain is so expensive, this leaves families in these areas worse off than those vast swathes of Eastern Europe, according to an EU study.
In Lincolnshire and Durham, the next two poorest areas in Britain, people live on less than £16,500 a year.
This puts them in the same bracket as Estonians and rural Poles, once prices are taken into account.
Britain as a whole fares a little better, with average earnings of £23,300 – just over the EU average of £20,750. But this still leaves us out of the top 10 wealthiest countries in the EU.
And this figure is propped up by Europe’s runaway richest region – inner London. In the heart of the capital the average GDP per person is £71,000 a year.
This is 321 per cent of the average across the EU, according to Brussels’s official statistics arm Eurostat…
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2617938/Revealed-How-parts-Britain-poorer-POLAND-families-Wales-Cornwall-Europes-worst-off.html#ixzz30qzZAhxW
