This week we had confirmation that people will be poorer in 2015 than when the coalition came to power in 2010.
George Osborne spoke for 55 minutes on Wednesday afternoon but, amid the bluster and the boasts, failed to mention the cost of living crisis even once.
Instead, this out-of-touch Chancellor used the Budget to claim that everything is going smoothly, when we all know he has missed his targets on growth, living standards and on balancing the books by 2015.
Back in the real world, there is no recovery at all for people on middle and low incomes.
Wages are down £1,600 a year since David Cameron came to office yet there was nothing in this Budget for people struggling to make ends meet.
In fact George Osborne's speech was noticeable for all the items it left out: no energy price freeze to help pensioners and families struggling with soaring bills, no help for families with rising childcare costs this side of the election, and no action to get young people without a job back into paid work.
There was, however, a gift for the highest earners, who will still get a tax cut worth £3billion a year.
And, quite incredibly, David Cameron and George Osborne have refused to rule out providing millionaires with another tax cut.
It shatters the Tory myth that we are "all in it together".
Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, the government's flagship rise in the personal allowance has been outweighed by 24 Tory tax rises since 2010.
On Wednesday the complacent chancellor laughed his way through the Budget debate, seemingly untroubled by having presided over the slowest recovery for 100 years.
His economic failure means people are being forced to dip into their savings simply in order to survive, and yesterday the independent forecaster laid out new figures to prove it.
Consumer spending was the main driver of growth in 2013, with lower saving playing a bigger role than higher incomes, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
And, despite all the grandiose claims about this being a Budget for savers, the OBR's figures showed savings will actually fall over the next five years.
So don't believe the hype in George Osborne's latest Budget - look at the evidence from recent history.
It is not just the omnishambles Budget of 2012 that has gone down as notorious; remember also George Osborne's promise from 2011: to re-balance the economy with a "march of the makers". Since then manufacturing, construction and infrastructure investment are all down. Exports are falling rather than rising.
It is only under Labour that Britain can earn its way to higher living standards for all, tackle the cost of cost-of-living crisis and get the deficit down in a fair way.
A Labour government will freeze energy bills, expand free childcare for working parents, abolish the bedroom tax and help 24million workers with a lower 10p starting rate of income tax.
We will create a paid starter job for every young person who has been out of work for more than 12 months - which they will have to take up or lose benefits - funded by a repeat of the tax on bank bonuses.
We will cut business rates for small firms and reverse the tax cut for people earning more than £150,000.
We will get the social security bill under control too, which is why we will support the welfare cap which Ed Miliband called for last year.
And we will never divide the country with patronising posters about "helping hardworking people do more of the things they enjoy".
It took months for the Tories to devise the Budget tax breaks on beer and bingo and just a few hours for Grant Shapps, their party chairman, to insult the people they expect will benefit.
And it was by using the word "they" to talk about working people that the Tories showed once again they are totally out of touch.
Labour will not separate the country into "them" and "us" but will govern for everyone. The Chancellor's failure on growth, on borrowing and on the cost of living crisis means hard working people are worse off under this government.