WIREDGOV

New analysis published recently (Saturday) by the TUC shows the exceptional nature of the UK’s pay squeeze.

• Average wage in UK would be £76 per week higher if growth had kept pace with the OECD average since the financial crisis
• Britain’s exceptional pay squeeze and cost of living crisis is due to failures of Conservative government rather than just global events, says TUC

While most OECD countries have delivered significant pay growth to their workers since the financial crisis, real wages in the UK have fallen.

Average annual pay growth in the UK has been -0.2% since 2007, and it is one of just 7 out of 33 OECD countries where real pay growth since 2007 is negative.

The TUC says that UK workers should not assume that, because the rest of the world was hit by the financial crisis and other global problems, other countries have suffered the same pay stagnation too.

In fact, if the UK had kept pace with the OECD average since 2007, the typical UK worker’s pay packet would be worth £4,000 more today. But instead, the average real wage has fallen by £950 since 2007 due to an average annual growth rate of -0.2%.

The highest rates of annual real pay growth since 2007 have been in the Baltic states Lithuania (3.2%), Latvia (2.8%), and Estonia (2.5%), followed by Poland (2.5%) and Slovakia (2.0%).

Countries comparable to the UK in location and industrial development tend to have done much better too – for example Sweden (1.6%), Norway (1.1%), Germany (1.0%), Denmark (0.9%) and France (0.5%).

Even some of the countries that were hardest hit by the financial crisis have done better than the UK – for example, Ireland (0.7%), Iceland (0.5%) and Portugal (0.4%).

The TUC says that the UK's exceptionally poor pay growth is a consequence of the austerity policies pursued by the last twelve years of Conservative governments, public sector pay freezes, and attacks on trade unions, including the Trade Union Act 2016.

Click here for the full press release