UK cost of living crisis: Brits to remain poor for a long time, says NIESR report

New Delhi: The United Kingdom’s cost of living crisis will end up denting the standard of living in the country permanently, a new report by UK’s National Institute of Economic and Social Research has concluded. Soaring inflation in UK The UK has been witnessing a double digit inflation with lagging wages for the last several months now. The crisis, the new study says, will leave one in every four UK households unable to pay their food and electricity bill when the government withdraws the subsidies in April this year, thus permanently reducing the standard of living for a significant population. With inflation running above 10 percent, five times more than Bank of England’s target 2 per cent, energy pricesM in the country remain high. The target NIESR says will not be achieved before the second half of 2025. Grocery inflation soared to a record high of 16.7 percent in January. This has taken the average annual grocery bill to $6,781 – $974 higher than last year. Middle class to be hit the most NSIER says that while the poorest families receive additional state aid, the middle class will face a cut of 7-13 per cent in their disposable income – as much as $4,800. What we’ve seen is that the shocks that have come along have progressively made us poorer per person,” said NIESR director Jagjit Chadha. UK, the institute said, will narrowly escape a recession. However, it predicted, the country will see a pale growth of just 0.2 per cent in 2023 before the GDP rises by 1 per cent in 2024 and 1.6 per cent in 2025. This, it warns, will “certainly feel like recession for millions of households”. Although most of world is facing economic problems at present, the UK is performing the worst, the Institute said. “This malaise seems to be affecting large parts of the advanced world but on many measures the UK looks as though it’s towards the bottom of performance and I think that’s a great concern,” added Chadha. The IMF earlier this month had said that UK would be the worst performing economy in the major industrialised countries and be the only G7 country to face a recession this year. Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram .