Households are not benefitting from the recovery

Commenting on new figures published today (Wednesday) by the Office for National Statistics, which show that real household disposable income has not risen despite GDP growth of 4.2 per cent since 2009, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said:

“Today’s figures confirm that households are not benefitting from the recovery.

“Growth matters because it raises people’s living standards. But this basic rule has been broken under an austerity-obsessed government. Most people will not feel as if we are in recovery if all the gains from growth are hogged by the same old elites, at the cost of ordinary families.

“The ONS report also shows the scale of our cost of living crisis, with people now having to spend more than a third of their incomes on essentials as they suffer the longest wage squeeze in over a century.

“The government must wake up and start tackling our cost of living crisis. It can start by taking on the excessive profits of the big energy firms that have pushed energy bills up so much that households are now spending more on gas and electricity than they are on filling up the car.”

NOTES TO EDITORS:

- The ONS Economic Review is available at www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/elmr/economic-review/november-2013/art-novemberer.html#tab-Introduction

- The TUC’s campaign plan can be downloaded from www.tuc.org.uk/campaignplan

- All TUC press releases can be found at www.tuc.org.uk

- Follow the TUC on Twitter: @tucnews

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