British workers are set to suffer the “dreadful” punishment of wages still not rising above 2008 levels by 2021 - the Institute for Fiscal Studies warned today.
And this chart from the respected independent think-tank shows how it is young people who have suffered the most since the financial crisis.
The IFS analysis shows how while younger workers aged 22-30 have seen their real earnings plummet 7% since 2008 - at the same time older people have seen theirs increase by 11%.
Paul Johnson, the IFS director, said today it was the worst situation for people’s pay since the end of the Second World War - or possibly longer.
“Overall real average earnings are forecast to rise by less than 5% between now and 2021. That means they will be 3.7% lower in 2021 than was projected in March. To put it another way around, half of the wage growth projected for the next five years back in March is not now projected to happen,” he said.
“On these projections real wages will, remarkably, still be below their 2008 levels in 2021.”
The economist added: “One cannot stress how dreadful that is - more than a decade without real earnings growth. We have certainly not seen a period remotely like it in the last 70 years.”