Britons have suffered a slump in living standards, official data shows, as a surge in net migration wiped out any gains from economic growth.
So-called real GDP per head shrank by 0.3pc between April and June compared with a year earlier, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, suggesting living standards have slid backwards as the population grew.
It comes after net migration hit a near-record 685,000 last year.
Are we not enriched by our diversity?
And that ne migration number is, erm, about 1% of total population……which is, by the standards ofthese things, v v high. Like Germanics enteringthe Roman Empire in 476 type high.
That net figure of 600,000 hides the absolute immigration figure of 2,000,000. 2 million coming in replacing 1.4 million leaving. Almost 3% of the population replaced.
Who are the people most likely to be leaving? Skilled people who can afford to leave and have the ability to get paid work in other countries. You don’t flee a country with free stuff if you can’t support yourself.
Who are the people observed to be arriving? Unskilled people who we are told are desperately needed to wipe people’s bums and clean hospital corridors.
I’m not including the tiny tiny number of boat people breaking into the country.
@jgh. “Who are the people most likely to be leaving? Skilled people who can afford to leave and have the ability to get paid work in other countries”. Here is at least part of the answer to your question: “International students accounted for nearly two-fifths of non-EU immigration to the UK and almost three-fifths of non-EU emigration from the UK over the past five years (since 2019)”. (“Reason for international migration, international students update: May 2024”, ONS website). If you count students as migrants coming in, then you need to count them again when they go out. This is not to contest your point about skilled people leaving in increasing numbers.
At least you can get a kebab 24 hours a day though.
“So-called real GDP per head shrank by 0.3pc between April and June compared with a year earlier, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, suggesting living standards have slid backwards as the population grew.”
That “per head” is obviously a far-right concept.
@HoblinMango
So we import people to skill them up in our universities, and then re-export them, along with their newfound skills? And the ones who stay here long term are the bum-wipers?
Doesn’t sound like a great business plan to me, because those foreign university fees are not a great source of value in return. And then we come to consider the societal externalities…
Like Germanics enteringthe Roman Empire in 476 type high.
Like the German army landing on the south coast in 1940 high? Hardly. Operation Löwe would have involved not much more than 100,000.
Why is GDP per person important to me? If there are more poorer people it means they’ll work for less so my money is worth more. Quite apart from the fact that GDP is not a good measure anyway.
Average – median, whatever – GDP per capita is how much value is being produced by each and every – on average – person in the country. By definition production equals consumption. Living in a high per capita GDP country means the labour of others produces more value that you can consume.
No, Charles is right: GDP per capita isn’t a good proxy for measuring living standards. It’s also not a terribly accurate indicator of a nation’s propensity to consume, either: Ireland has the second-highest GDP per capita in Europe, for example, but has consumption levels considerably below the Western European average (on a par with Portugal, in fact).
And besides, a decline of 0.3% during one quarter hardly constitutes a “slump”. A more pertinent fact – at least as far as living standards are concerned – is that wage growth has remained comfortably above inflation for quite some time now (even if it is now steadily easing).
FFS. We all know that GDP’s not a good number. GNI is better but it more difficult to measure. NNN is the right one but that’s impossible to measure until several years later. We all also know that for Eire – because those computing profits flowing through but not sticking to the sides – that GDP doesn’t work and GNI does.
No, Eire is nowhere near Portugal, it’s about, around, UK (but not England).
Ireland Republic is a complicated country.
Dublin is a bit schit but its ring road is effectively a toll road and it works as the traffic can be rammed but it still flows along. The rest is sensational and the people epic.
But I wondered a random thing:
there’s few railway lines and of what there is a lot is single track – is the amount of single track a useful proxy for the prosperity of a country – after all, you should keep your railways keen and it is more productive to move around by coach or car.
Irish net wages are at about the level of the UK, Tim. But the country’s consumption (as final expenditure) per head levels are way lower, and have been since the 2008 financial shock. Eurostat measures them each year and Ireland always comes out below 100% of the European average; this year it was at 94, closer to Eastern Europe than to its neighbours (although ahead of Portugal slightly, I grant you – it is the World Bank that puts those two at the same level):
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20240619-2
The UK, when it was still a Eurostat participant, regularly came in at between 115 and 120 – so at about the level of Germany and Austria… and far above Ireland.
Obviously, Irish GDP is a facade, for the reasons you mention. But the huge gap between GDP and actual consumption is an extreme example of a phenomenon that can be found elsewhere – the two just do not often match up.