Families in Peterborough, Stamford and Rutland could be '£2k worse off by 2030'
That's according the research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation
It's feared working families in Peterborough, Stamford and Rutland will be nearly £2000 worse off by the end of the decade.
That's according to poverty prevention charity the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which says the the 2024 Budget, to be announced on Wednesday, risks keeping the UK economy on a course which would see working families £1900 a year worse off in 2029 than they were in 2021 in terms of post-tax earnings.
Alistair Jones, a politics expert from Leicester's De Montford Uni, tell us families could actually be much more worse off than that.
"If you factor in other things such as the OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development forecasts for Brexit saying that families, worst case scenario, would be £5000 a year worse off, there are huge problems for Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and also for Rishi Sunak."
He also doesn't think tax cuts is the answer.
"The problem we've got here is tax cuts actually tend to not help people very much, what is actually needed is better coordinated public sending to target the problem areas."
Here are the key findings of a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation:
• By the end of the decade (Q1 2029), real household earnings from work after tax will be £1900 a year lower on average than they were at the beginning of the decade (Q1 2021). Today, those earnings are £2400 lower
• Household Benefit income will be £540 a year lower on average over the same time period
• Relative to post-tax earnings, essentials will continue to be less affordable than they were in Q1 2021 until Q1 2029
• At the same time, the cost of housing for the average family will have risen by £1700 a year in real terms over the same period
• By 2028/29, real terms spending per head on public services outside the NHS is projected to be £260 a year lower than in 2022/23, with NHS spending not set to recover 2022/23 levels until 2028/29
Alfie Stirling, Chief Economist at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said:
“Unless policy makers intervene, the 2020s are set to see an unprecedented second lost decade of living standards in a row. As an economy, as a society and as a country, we simply can’t afford this to happen."
“This analysis is a unique and vital way of connecting big, long term trends in the economy with the real lives of individual families, and shines a light on which of these issues the public are most worried about and the extent to which they hold government responsible. The findings should trouble us all, and the priority now must be to make sure it does not come to pass.
“With the Budget just days away, renewed political energy and policy bravery is needed urgently to avert a second period of unthinkable decline. Politicians from all parties need to chart a course for a sustained recovery in living standards for people who need it most, and to rebuild the kind of lasting economic security in the UK that can prevent such levels of suffering from ever happening again. Anything short of this on the 6 March should be considered a failure.”