UK wages are hitting rock bottom as Tory economic failure bites home

TUC says real wages are still lower than they were when the financial crisis hit in 2008 [Image: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Barcroft Images].

The economy is failing, Brexit will make it worse, and employers are hogging their takings because Tory government employment policy allows it.

Inflation is increasing and wages aren’t. The exploiters in government and in industry are squeezing you hard.

There is no justification for it. Don’t believe the mealy-mouthed mumblings of the men and women in suits. They have been saying the same nonsense for years and it was never true in the first place.

Sadly there seem to be millions of people who are willing to believe it, though.

Can you afford to let them continue with this mistake?

Britain is set to have the worst wage growth of any wealthy nation next year, ranking behind Italy, Greece and Hungary, according to analysis by the TUC.

The UK is forecast to come bottom from 32 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development wealthy nations for wage performance in 2018, according to the study of OECD figures by the unions’ umbrella group.

British workers are expected to see their earnings decrease by 0.7% in 2018 when taking account of inflation, which has surged in the past year as a result of the pound’s weakness since the EU referendum, pushing up the cost of importing food and fuel.

Only two other OECD nations – Spain and Italy – are expected to record negative wage growth, although both still outperform the UK.

In contrast, Hungary is expected to come top for real wage growth next year, with pay set to accelerate by 4.9%. The eurozone is forecast to see growth in earnings of 0.6%.

Source: UK to sink to the bottom of OECD wage growth index in 2018 | Money | The Guardian


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

7 thoughts on “UK wages are hitting rock bottom as Tory economic failure bites home

      1. B Dixon

        So Mike tell us how Barry Davie’s is wrong when business men are saying otherwise and even the head of project fear admits it’s not going to be as bad as he said.a prominent business man last week said when we leave the EU food will be cheaper and we could save £200 million a week on scrapping certain types of tariffs on food from outside EU also the big companies are investing in UK unlike the scare monger’s said if we voted out EU they would all leave strange that Nissan were one of the companies named to leave but day after the vote they said they are investing more in UK and not leaving

      2. Mike Sivier Post author

        Nissan was famously bribed by Theresa May, of course.
        Businessmen said all these wonderful things you mention, did they? Would these be businessmen who see a way to take advantage for themselves, while hanging the rest of us out to dry? I think so.
        The very rich may benefit in the short term, by taking advantage of Brexit to exploit you. And when I say “you”, I mean you, B Dixon.
        You may live to regret Brexit, but I doubt you will live to recover from it.
        “Food will be cheaper” – how gullible could you be?

    1. corneleus51

      You are obviously viewing the economy from a long way up the tower, where tax evasion and avoidence are the norm and you cannot see the floor where good British workers are finding themselves back in the world of having to pay for their food on payday and are living “on the book” as they did before their unions took on the selfish!

  1. rotzeichen

    One man’s wage is another man’s income. That might on the surface seem like an over simplification, but people are the real economy and when they spend the economy grows, in this case though I believe the spending comes from excess borrowing as only recently economists show the increase in personal debt. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/oct/27/rise-in-personal-debt-agreements-add-to-concerns-about-uk-debt

    If we look at wage growth and productivity we see that Britain’s economy grew whilst wages fell.

    https://www.ft.com/content/83e7e87e-fe64-11e6-96f8-3700c5664d30

    So that means employers could have paid more but refuse to.

    The truth is now clear, when employers said back in the 1980s that they had learned the lessons of the 1920s, we now know exactly what they meant.

    They are happy to exploit people when they are weak, and in contrast to their promises of no return to the 20s and 30s, that is precisely what they have done.

    The rich get richer and the poor get poorer under the Tories.

    Rising debt levels put us back to the days of the Financial Crash in 2008, so for all the pain on low incomes we go right back to the start, where all our problems began, ‘Neo-Liberal mythology’ lies at the heart of everything.

Comments are closed.