UK workers £50 a week worse off since 2008, says TUC

Average wages have fallen by £50 a week in real terms since 2008, according to new analysis published by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) today (16 October).

The analysis shows that even when using the government’s preferred inflation measure (the consumer prices index), which excludes housing costs, workers are on average £2,500 a year worse off in terms of their spending power than they were before the crash.

Last month Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said that average weekly earnings have fallen by around 10 per cent in real terms since the financial crisis.

The TUC analysis shows the cost of this fall for working people and how pay has failed to pick up during the recent economic recovery.

This is the seventh year that average weekly earnings have been falling – the longest period since records began in the 1850s, says the TUC.

TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Workers would be over £2,500 a year better off had wage growth kept pace with even the most modest measure of inflation.

“Instead, pay has fallen off a cliff and shows little sign of recovering any time soon. Ordinary households are not sharing in the recovery and are facing their seventh consecutive year of real wage cuts.

“People are increasingly being forced to use their credit cards and dwindling savings to make ends meet, and unless Britain gets a pay rise soon the UK’s personal debt problem will get even worse.

“That’s why thousands and thousands of people from across the country – who work in both the private and the public sectors – will be coming to London on Saturday for our Britain Needs a Pay Rise march and rally.”

* Mark Carney's speech at the 2014 TUC Congress can be found at http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/speeches/2014/spee...

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