A new study shows the scale of damage done to living standards by twenty years of failed economic policy, reports John Rees

Astounding new figures show that every family in the UK has lost £2,000 worth of income every year for the last ten years.

A new report from the Resolution Foundation shows that the average household would have been £20,000 better off if incomes had continued to grow at the same rate they were in 2005. That means that the average worker would have been a whopping £400 a week better off every week for a decade.

Instead, incomes for working-age families have grown by only 7%, whereas essentials like energy, food, and rents have risen by as much as 120% over the same period. This level of stagnation is ‘unprecedented in modern times’ reports the Resolution Foundation.

Middle incomes in the UK are now 19% lower than the average in Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the Netherlands.

The causes will come as little surprise to many. The ‘dire productivity of the UK economy’ is the ultimate cause of the downturn, with ‘years of under-investment across public and private sectors’ being a key factor, according to the report.

And there’s more of the same coming down the road if the current economic statistics are anything to go by. The UK has the worst inflation of the industrialised nations at 3.5%, and the rate of food inflation is even higher at 5.1% last month, up from 4.9% in July.

Those price rises are now combined with rising unemployment and also with fewer hours being worked by those who still have a job.

That all adds up to rising pressure on living costs that have already eaten into household incomes in the dramatic way that the Resolution Foundation reports.

With ‘Iron Chancellor’ Rachel Reeves set to raise taxes across the board in her autumn statement, it’s looking like a hard winter for many households, and one in which the government is going to feel an even colder wind of unpopularity.