Median household disposable income for the poorest fifth of the population decreased by 2.6% to £16,800, largely because of a reduction in wages and salaries; this remains 4.9% below pre-pandemic, FYE 2020 levels.
Richard Sweetman, Senior Consultant in Broadstone’s Employee Benefits Consulting team, commented: “Today’s figures lay bare a challenging sixteen years for the nation’s finances with household disposable incomes remaining largely stagnant throughout that period. While recent years had shown signs of increasing disposable incomes, the impact of the cost-of-living crisis and inflationary shock driving up the price of borrowing has wiped out the gains from wage increases and sent average disposable incomes into reverse for two consecutive years.
“The consequences of diminishing disposable incomes are severe for workers with impacts throughout their financial lives such as harming their ability to get onto the housing ladder and save for their later lives via workplace pensions and other mechanisms. However, the evidence does show that employers offering financial education and financial wellbeing programmes as part of their employee benefits package can help people make the most of the disposable income they do have.”
ONS Data on Disposable Income
|
