The IFS was not wrong to describe shrinking UK pay packets as dreadful

Given that real wages will still be below their 2008 level in 2021, the outlook for people on low and middle incomes is bleakDirectors of the Institute for Fiscal Studies normally avoid hyperbole. They do not tend to use words such as “dreadful” when analysing the state of the economy or the public finances.But that was the term Paul Johnson, the head of the IFS, chose to describe the era of shrinking pay packets triggered by the financial crash of 2007-08.Continue reading...