Real wages in the UK haven’t grown since 2005 – and that’s including executive salaries
Stagnation: years ago, the Living Wage Commission said the fall in take-home pay had left millions of workers struggling to make ends meet
You’re a lot worse-off than you thought you were.
Official data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that Conservative governments since 2010 have presided over the longest period of wage stagnation since the Napoleonic Wars:
Real average earnings are at the same level as they were in 2005. Then weekly pay stood at £497 — the same figure as it was in April.
Economists described the figures as “completely unprecedented”, saying that there was no comparable period since the Napoleonic war when wages had been so stagnant. They attributed the slump to the series of crises that have hit the economy over the past 15 years including the financial crash, Brexit and the consequences of the war in Ukraine. They warned that with inflation still running at nearly 10 per cent, it was likely to be about 18 months before real-terms wages began to rise again.
The figures show that, between the turn of the century and 2005, seasonally adjusted average weekly earnings rose by about 15 per cent amid a buoyant economy. They then increased more slowly, by 5 per cent, in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis. The impact of that crash on public and private sector wages effectively wiped out all the gains in the previous eight years, before recovering slightly in the three years leading up to the Brexit referendum.
Since then, excluding the effects of Covid which distorted the figures because lower paid workers in sectors such as hospitality were furloughed, wage growth has never recovered.
Apparently, if wages had continued rising as they had been before the financial crisis, your pay packet would have been £200 per week thicker.
Who benefits from this?
Who profits by depriving you of the fair wages that help make life worth living?
Here’s a hint:
UK’s top bosses paid millions despite cost of living crisis, annual reports show | Executive pay and bonuses | The Guardian https://t.co/bWMNiWHvLX
— Samuel Miller (@Hephaestus7) June 6, 2023
Source: No growth in average earnings since 2005, ‘unprecedented’ data shows
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:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right 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
5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
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:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
