After the economy grew for two consecutive quarters and growth forecasts were revised from the terrible to the merely mediocre, George Osborne has decided it’s time to declare victory. In his speech earlier today in east London, the Chancellor claimed that “those in favour of a Plan B have lost the argument” and that Britain was “turning the corner”. The media, most of which endorsed austerity in 2010, has every interest in echoing his words. But here are five reasons why it’s still the Chancellor and his supporters who have all the explaining to do.
1. This is still the slowest recovery for more than a century
Growth has returned – it was always bound to at some point (and no Keynesian ever suggested otherwise) – but this remains the slowest recovery for more than 100 years. Had Osborne achieved the OBR’s original June 2010 forecasts, the economy would now be 8.1% larger. Instead, after a collapse in private and public investment, it’s only 4% larger. To make up the lost ground since 2010, the economy would need to grow at 1.3% a quarter for the next two years. Output of 0.7% is the least we should expect (not least when the population is growing).
2. The economy is 2.9% smaller than before the crash (the US is 4.5% larger)
Owing to three years of anaemic growth, the economy is still 2.9% below its pre-recession peak. In the US, by contrast, where the Obama administration maintained fiscal stimulus, the economy is 4.5% larger than in 2007 after growth three times greater than that of the UK since autumn 2010. And it’s not just the Americans who have outpaced us. The UK recovery has been slower that of any other G7 country bar Italy.
3. Unemployment hasn’t fallen for six months and underemployment is at a near-record high
Before the economy returned to growth, the Tories were hailing employment as this government’s success story (as they did when the most recent were published). But the data, as so often, tells a different story. After falling from 8.4% to 7.7% between November 2011 and November 2012, the headline rate of unemployment has been stuck at around 7.8% for the last six months, 0.1% higher than its previous low.
That total joblessness has not risen to the heights experienced in the 1980s owes more to the willingness of workers to price themselves into employment (real wages have fallen by a near-unprecedented 9%) than the success of the government’s strategy.
Alongside this, underemployment is surging, with a record 1.43m in part-time jobs because they can’t find full-time work. Worst of all, long-term unemployment (those out of work for more than a year) is at a near-record high and youth unemployment is at 973,000 (21.4%).
4. His deficit reduction plan failed and he’s forecast to borrow £245bn more
For a man whose raison d’etre is deficit reduction (“The deficit reduction programme takes precedence over any of the other measures in this agreement,” states the Coalition Agreement), Osborne isn’t very good at it. Having originally pledged to eliminate the structural deficit by 2014-15 and ensure that debt is falling as a proportion of GDP by 2015-16, he’s been forced to push both targets back to 2017-18.
Contrary to what some on the right claim, this isn’t due to any lack of austerity. Infrastructure spending has been slashed by 42%, VAT has been increased to 20% and 356,000 public sector jobs have been cut, so that the state workforce is now at its lowest level since 1999. Despite all this, Osborne is still forecast to borrow £245bn more than planned across this parliament and more in five years than Labour did in 13.
5. Most people are still getting poorer – and that won’t change soon
While the media and the political class fixate over GDP, it’s a poor measure of the nation’s economic health. As we saw even before the crash, a growing economy can disguise stagnating or falling wages for the majority. Between April and June, average weekly earnings (excluding bonuses) rose by just 1.1% compared with a year earlier, 1.7 percentage points below the rate of inflation (2.8%). Since the election, average pay has fallen by £1,350 a year in real terms, with most now earning no more than they were in 2003, a worse performance than every EU country except Portugal, the Netherlands and Greece.
And the situation is unlikely to improve anytime soon. Wages aren’t expected to outstrip inflation until 2015 at the earliest and earnings for low and middle income families won’t reach pre-recession levels until 2023.
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