This year seven million households will be affected, economists have predicted
UK households are suffering a “permanent” decline in living standards as wages lag behind double-digit inflation and families struggle to pay their bills, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) has warned.
According to a forecast by the UK’s oldest independent economic research institute released on Wednesday, 7 million households, which is the equivalent of one in four, will be unable to cover their energy and food bills once the government starts scaling back its subsidies program in April.
Energy prices remain high, while inflation is running above 10%, more than five times the Bank of England’s 2% target. NIESR said the target will not be reached until the second half of 2025.
Grocery inflation alone soared to a new record of 16.7% in the four weeks of January, taking the average annual food shopping bill in the UK to £5,504 ($6,781), up £788 ($974) from last year, according to the latest research by Kantar.
NIESR economists warn that middle-income households will be hit hardest by the cost-of-living crisis. While the poorest families receive additional state aid, the middle classes will face a decline of between 7% and 13% in their disposable income, or as much as £4,000 ($4,800).
“What we’ve seen is that the shocks that have come along have progressively made us poorer per person,” said NIESR director Jagjit Chadha.
https://www.rt.com/business/571187-uk-living-standards-permanent-decline/
Although the institute believes the UK will narrowly escape a recession, it predicts the country will see “anemic” growth of just 0.2% this year before GDP rises 1% in 2024 and 1.6% in 2025. For millions of households it “will certainly feel like a recession,” NIESR warned.
“This malaise seems to be affecting large parts of the advanced world but on many measures the UK looks as though it’s towards the bottom of performance and I think that’s a great concern,” said Chadha.
Earlier this month, the International Monetary Fund said that Britain will have the worst economic performance among other major industrialized nations, and will become the only G7 member to face a recession this year.
Any moment now I am expecting John Cleese (a veteran of Monty Python) to jump out of the bushes and announce the creation of the Ministry of Silly Wars, with Donald Trump as the deranged leader. For you youngsters out there, Monty Python’s skit, The Ministry of Silly Walks, helped make the members of MP legends. I had to reference Monty Python because the line of bullshit the Trump administration is feeding the American people and the world about the amazing, obliterating US attack on Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday morning, is more ridiculous that all of the silly walks pictured in the following video:
My hopes that Donald Trump would finally act like a responsible adult are dashed. He’s a dangerous buffoon. While the team around him are working frantically to maintain the fiction that Trump has a vision and is calling the shots on the foreign policy front, he is careening around the globe like an out-of-control cue ball on a billiards table. It started a week ago… first, he claimed...
Tuesday marks the third anniversary of the launch of the Fujian, China's first aircraft carrier equipped with electromagnetic catapults. Official media said China is about to enter a three-aircraft-carrier era, with the Fujian expected to enter service by 2025.
After the launch of the Fujian on June 17, 2022, it carried out its first sea trial from May 1 to 8 in 2024. Since then, the Fujian has completed multiple sea trials, accumulating more than 100 days of sea trial, China Central Television (CCTV) News reported on Tuesday.
Wei Dongxu, a Chinese military affairs commentator, said that the aircraft carrier Fujian has been making steady progress in sea trials, and is expected to be commissioned within this year, CCTV News reported.
With a full displacement of more than 80,000 tons, the Fujian is the world's first conventionally powered aircraft carrier to feature electromagnetic catapult technologies, according to CCTV News. The report noted that it will carry a wide variety of carrier-borne...
Chinese President Xi Jinping said Tuesday that China and Central Asian countries have explored and formed the China-Central Asia Spirit, which features mutual respect, mutual trust, mutual benefit, mutual assistance, and the pursuit of common modernization through high-quality development.
Xi made the remarks in his speech at the second China-Central Asia Summit in the Kazakh capital of Astana.
Xi said that the Chinese side has decided to establish three cooperation centers and a trade facilitation platform within the China-Central Asia cooperation mechanism.
When addressing the summit, Xi said these institutions include the China-Central Asia poverty reduction cooperation center, the China-Central Asia education exchange cooperation center, the China-Central Asia desertification control cooperation center, as well as the China-Central Asia trade facilitation cooperation....more below
