George Osborne’s declaration that his economic policy is “working” will have come as something of a shock to millions of families up and down the country.
George Osborne’s declaration that his economic policy is “working” will have come as something of a shock to millions of families up and down the country.
Here are five reasons why George Osborne is wrong:
1) Plan A has not brought the growth he promised
As Will Straw points out, Osborne promised growth of 6.9% over 3 years, but instead there has only been a miniscule 1.8%. Osborne is setting the bar incredibly low for what counts as an economic victory.
2) His government is worst in recorded history for living standards
As LFF editor James Bloodworth wrote last month, this government has seen 36 months of falling wages, which is more than under any Prime Minister on record. Prices have risen faster than wages in all but one month under this government.
3) Osborne won’t meet his deficit reduction plan
In 2010 Osborne declared that he would eliminate the structural deficit and make sure that debt is falling as a proportion of GDP. He won’t achieve either target in this parliament.
4) Long-term unemployment is highest since 1996
There are 915, 000 people in the UK who have been unemployed for longer than a year. This is 32, 000 more than last year. 474, 000 people have been out of work for more than two years.
5) The rise of foodbanks
The Coalition has presided over a staggering rise in the number of people using food banks. The number of people using food banks has jumped from 128, 697 in 2011-12 to 346,992 in 2012-13.
11 Responses to “Five reasons why George Osborne is wrong”
Hatstand
May be they were but 50% was unsustainable so they wanted to get the politics out of the way early. Brown should be ashamed of himself for laying the trick in the first place. He knew it was damaging but only Brown mattered in his world.
Just out of interest, the higher the tax rate, the less each increase achieves. If you tax at 20% and say increase it to 25%, you raise 25% more money. The amount the tax payer receives goes from 80% to 75%. This is a decrease of 6.25% of take home pay, i.e. he receives that much less. If the tax rate is already fairly high, say 40% and you increase it to 50%, the state receives 25% more but the tax payer loses 20% of his take home pay – a very big drop. And of course the higher up you go, the less productive and more damaging the tax rise becomes.