Jeremy Corbyn: Average worker will be £2,257 worse off by 2022
2 min read
The average worker will be £2,257 worse off by 2022, Jeremy Corbyn will claim today.
The Labour leader will accuse the Conservative Party of depressing earnings and "refusing to invest" in the economy.
Speaking at Labour’s South West Regional Conference, Mr. Corbyn will cite new analysis of figures released by the Office for Budget Responsibility alongside the Budget on Wednesday, which paint a bleak picture for UK GDP growth and suggest that workers could face two decades without wage increases.
“Wednesday’s Budget was an alarming exposé of the Tories’ failure on the economy” Mr. Corbyn will tell Labour members.
“It is frankly astonishing that anybody could have the cheek to claim we have a strong economy, when most people are losing and not gaining income”
The OBR forecast predicts that a worker on the average wage will earn £2,257 less by 2022.
This figure is a significant reduction on the OBR’s March forecast, with earners losing £858 more than previously thought.
“To put it another way, for the last three weeks of that financial year, everybody on the National Living Wage in Britain will effectively be working for free as they are denied the earnings previously expected. As the OBR says, it is workers who have to bear the brunt of the Government’s poor management of the economy” Corbyn will say.
“Despite all the evidence, the Tories refuse to accept that cutting public services, holding wages down and refusing to invest is a recipe for failure.”
“The Government cannot continue to tinker at the edges of an economy that is so completely broken. Our country needs a new and very different approach.”
Labour are proposing to introduce a minimum wage of £10 per hour and to scrap the 1% cap on public sector pay increases in an attempt to boost stagnant wages.
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