British incomes jumped in 2012 despite shadow of finance crisis
BRITISH households’ incomes increased from 2011 to 2012, official figures showed yesterday, confounding the previous view that they became worse off as prices outstripped wages.
After taxes, benefits and inflation the average individual had £16,791 to spend or save, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said yesterday.
The figure was up 3.3 per cent on the previous year, and represents a strong rebound from the early years of the financial crisis – over the crisis period from 2007 to 2012, private incomes fell sharply and benefits increased.
In 2007, private incomes made up 78.9 per cent of an average person’s income – by 2012, that had fallen to 77.9 per cent.
As the five-year period was one of falling incomes, the rise in incomes in 2012 indicates the fall must have been particularly steep in the earlier years.
In 2012 social benefits made up less than 14 per cent of London households’ resources.