UK workers have lost up to £20k in wages since 2008
The average wages of UK workers are worth a third less in some parts of the country than they were ten years ago, new research has revealed.
In some parts of the country the average worker has lost £11,800 in real earnings over the last decade, research from the Trades Union Congress revealed, with London hit the hardest with average real wages down by £20,000.
The UK is only of two advanced economies, along with Italy, where real wages are still lower than a decade ago.
TUC revealed the wage slump was the worst among the leading economies in the last ten years affecting areas such as London’s Redbridge, Epsom and Waverly in Surrey, Selby in North Yorkshire and Anglesey in Wales.
The TUC also revealed that pay packets are not set to recover their 2008 level until 2024, with UK workers stuck in the longest real wage squeeze in more than 200 years.
Bank of England governor Mark Carney has called it "the first lost decade since the 1860s", with a 10-year moving average of real wage growth showing a dramatic collapse over the last decade at a rate and consistency not seen since Queen Victoria was in the throne and William Gladstone was PM.
The TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady, said: “The government has failed to tackle Britain’s cost-of-living crisis. As a result, millions of families will be worse off this Christmas than a decade ago.
“While pay packets have recovered in most leading economies, wage growth in the UK is stuck in the slow lane.
“Ministers need to wake up and get wages rising faster. This means cranking up the pressure on businesses to pay staff more, especially at a time when many companies are sitting on large profits.”