Real wages are below 2008 levels at almost two-thirds of UK local authorities, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has found.
An analysis of official statistics by the TUC revealed that pay at 212 out of 340 (62 percent) authorities will be lower in 2024 than 16 years ago.
Local authority wages, in real terms, are far below where they would be if they had grown at the pre-2008 growth rate.
The union body estimated that the average UK worker would be £10,400 a year better off if real wages had continued to grow at their pre-global financial crisis trend – the equivalent of £200 a week.
Before the financial crash UK real weekly wages grew on average by 1.7 percent each year. Since 2008, average annual growth has been minus 0.2 percent.
The analysis found that London has the highest proportion of pay lag, with real pay lower than in 2008 in nearly all (94 percent) of its local authorities.
However, even in lower-paid regions of the UK like the north east – where incomes for people on the lowest pay have been bolstered by the minimum wage – real wages are still lower than in 2008 in half of local authorities.
The TUC called the findings a “damning indictment” of the Conservatives’ economic record and said that millions of UK workers are currently enduring the longest pay squeeze in more than 200 years.
TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “Hard work should pay for everyone. But people are still worse off than in 2008 across the vast majority of Britain. And in every corner of the UK pay growth is way below historic trends.
“This is a damning indictment of the Conservatives’ economic record. This is the same government that’s given us the most dramatic fall in living standards on record.
“The Tories’ failure to grow the economy – and their scorched-earth austerity policies – has decimated family budgets. Just imagine how much better off people would be if they had an extra £10,400 in their pay packets each year – and how much more prosperous the country would be.
“It doesn’t have to be this way. We can create a new era of decent pay growth again where families’ living standards rise rather than falling backwards.
“But we need a new approach to get there. That means a proper plan to get the economy growing again by investing in UK industry, and a New Deal so that working people get a fair share of the wealth they create.”
