Yahoo Finance Real wages shrank by nearly £80 a month this year, says TUC
Workers have experienced the sharpest fall in real wages since 1977 with people losing, on average, £76 a month in 2022 as inflation soars.
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) said analysis of official statistics showed key workers in the public sector were hit the hardest by the UK’s real wage slump.
Nurses’ real pay fell by £1,800 this year while paramedics lost £2,400. Midwives, another of the UK’s pandemic heroes, saw their real pay drop by £2,400 over the last year.
The union body claimed nurses are earning £5,000 a year less in real terms than they were in 2010, and for midwives and paramedics this rises to over £6,000.
Read more: UK unemployment rate rises to 3.6% as real wages lag behind inflation
Key workers in the public sector have seen their pay plummet by £180 a month in real terms.
“People should be able to look forward to Christmas without having to worry about how they'll pay for it,” TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady, said.
“But family budgets have been shredded by soaring bills and more than a decade of pay being held down,” she added.
The TUC said UK workers are enduring the longest pay squeeze in more than 200 years — with average pay still worth £85 a month less than in 2008.
In the public sector average pay is down by £204 a month in real terms compared to 2008.
The Conservatives have presided over the longest real wage squeeze in over 200 years. That is a "badge of shame", the TUC said.
“The Tories’ failure to get pay rising has left millions of households brutally exposed to the cost of living emergency.
“It’s time to reward work — not wealth. We cannot be a country where NHS and teaching staff have to use foodbanks, while City bankers are given unlimited bonuses,” O’Grady said.
Read more: UK workers have lost £9,200 a year in wages since 2008
The TUC also said the current wave of industrial action in the UK is the result of workers “being pushed to breaking point” by years of pay austerity.
“Nobody takes strike action lightly. But workers have been pushed to breaking point by years of wage stagnation.
“If there are strikes across different sectors this winter the government only have themselves to blame,” O’Grady warned.
