George Osborne is giving with one hand and taking away with the other in today’s Budget. The Chancellor has finally woken up to the fact that Britain needs a pay rise. The TUC has long campaigned for the minimum wage to rise faster and it’s good to see that the Chancellor has listened…Read more…
One London: under the coalition, the capital’s economy moved even further from the rest of the UK
As the government’s flagship regional initiative seemingly flounders under the failings of investment in the railways and ahead of potential Budget announcements, it is worth reviewing just how far the regional reality is from the rhetoric. For over the period of the coalition, London moved even…Read more…
Regional CCS clusters needed – UK is approaching a carbon policy black hole
I went to the launch of the Teesside Collective report today in London, on the case for an industrial CCS pipeline in the North East. So did a new DECC Minister (see below). The four ‘anchor’ companies leading the project are steel producer SSI, fertiliser producer GrowHow, plastics firm Lotte…Read more…
Congratulations to Heathrow – now become a Living Wage employer
This morning, the TUC has welcomed the recommendation from the Airports Commission calling for additional runway capacity at Heathrow. We have long been on record as supporting airport expansion. As the voice of Britain at work, the TUC seeks the creat…Read more…
Why are the self-employed included in employment statistics, but excluded from earnings figures?
There are many ways to raise an average. For example here are two ways to raise Average Earnings: Have more people on high pay Have fewer people on low pay And here are two ways of having fewer people on lower pay: Pay the low paid more Just ignore them The Average Weekly Earnings (AWE)…
The…Read more…
Public sector net debt reaches £1½ trillion, nearly £200bn more than planned, and stuck for years at over 75% of GDP
In May 2015 public sector net debt (excluding public sector banks) rose above £1,500 billion or £1½ trillion for the first time. Over the past four years, government borrowing has moved further and further above the original plans (see). Spending cuts have harmed the economy more than expected,…Read more…
Budget surplus target plays politics with economic growth
Is it possible that anybody thinks the budget surplus law apparently to be announced in the Mansion House speech is about anything other than politics? It’s definitely stupid economics. Inevitably spending was higher and taxes were lower in the UK after the financial crash, and we had a small…Read more…
The Chancellor bemoans Labour’s household debt record, but official figures show the pace of borrowing rising rapidly and debt on his watch likely to hit an all-time high
In the Independent today, James Moore reported Frances O’Grady’s remarks on household debt. These followed the Queen’s Speech economy debate last week, when Tory backbencher Mark Garnier attacked Labour’s record: “Does the Chancellor agree that the £1 trillion rise in household debt…Read more…
The OECD, the ‘B-minus economy’, the case for infrastructure spending and the UK
Yesterday the OECD set out their view of the global economy. They make a constructive and very strong case for borrowing to finance infrastructure spending. B-minus performance OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría awarded the OECD economic performance a B-minus “The global economy is projected to…Read more…
‘Markit’ concede increasing concerns on recovery following services PMI
Just ahead of the election the weakness in the GDP figures was greeted with some scepticism (see here). Earlier this week there were disappointing manufacturing figures from Markit, who compile ‘purchasing managers’ index’ measures of activity. Yesterday Markit issued service…Read more…
UK union membership ‘broadly unchanged’ – but it pays to be in a union.
The latest trade union membership figures and statistics published by the Department of Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) in its statistical bulletin shows union membership for 2014 in the UK…Read more…
Double dose of bad news on manufacturing
Over the past year official statistics have shown growth in the manufacturing sector steadily slowing to a near halt, with in 2015Q1 quarterly growth only just above zero at 0.1 per cent. Today two private sector sources reported this weakness continui…Read more…
Weak GDP growth underpinned by hefty decline in net trade, as falling prices distort picture
GDP figures today are not exactly straightforward to unravel. The headline messages are the same as last month. Quarterly growth in 2015Q1 was unrevised at 0.3%, down from 0.6% in Q4. Compared with a year ago, growth is unrevised at 2.4%. The output fi…Read more…
Unions Furious As Obama Gets Approval For ‘Fast Track’
President Obama may have got his way on ‘fast track’, the legislation he needs to drive through approval of a new generation of free trade agreements but US unions have vowed to continue to fight on…Read more…
Keith Ewing: Where Do We Go Now?
Trade unions face a crisis like no other as 5 years of Tory rule beckon. We need a new vision — and we need it now, by Keith Ewing. Shortly after the general election in 2010, I wrote in these…Read more…
The deflation debate and austerity – how policymakers may be severely misjudging capacity
There is a sense in the discussion surrounding the latest inflation figures that those who are less-than-sanguine about the threat of deflation are somehow ignorant or even reckless. Here’s Robert Peston yesterday: However many of those who define themselves as “serious economists”…Read more…
Negative CPI inflation and falling core inflation, the Chancellor is right to “remain vigilant to deflationary risks”
In April 2015 CPI inflation was minus -0.1 per cent, after two months of zero per cent inflation. ONS have constructed historic data which suggest the last time CPI inflation fell was in March 1960, 55 years ago. The Chancellor first stressed the beneficial cost of living effects that some…Read more…
Only a minority of voters are feeling an economic recovery, and only a minority support continued cuts in government spending
Lord Ashcroft’s poll of 12,000 voters the day after the election gives some indications on the role of the economy in peoples’ decisions. Responses to question 9 support the view that in spite of recent positive economic news, the majority of the population are not feeling the recovery. Only 25 per…Read more…
Bank of England shows jobs gains are concentrated in lower-paid work
ONS released today another upbeat set of employment numbers, as well as an underlying nominal earnings figure above 2 per cent for the first time in approaching four years (see my colleague Richard Exell’s post). But in the meantime the Bank of England issued a sobering analysis of the nature of…Read more…
The next chancellor should reject the logic behind today’s warning from the FT’s Chris Giles that weak productivity would mean ‘harsher austerity’
In a column in today’s Financial Times (‘What the next chancellor does not yet know’), Chris Giles sets the economic tone for the next Parliament in part on the basis of yet unknown productivity outcomes. For Giles, as for many others, productivity is an inherent quality or defect of the economy…Read more…