Piggy banks propping up UK recovery, says TUC

date: 30 June 2015
embargo: For immediate release

Commenting on today’s (Tuesday) GDP figures, which show that household savings are at their lowest level since before the financial crash, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said

“Today’s figures show that Britain's fragile recovery is being propped up by families raiding their piggy banks.

“While any growth is welcome, over the last year the recovery has slowed significantly and remains unbalanced. People running down their savings is not a sustainable route for the economy, and looks too much like a repeat of the trends that drove the financial crash.

“A strong recovery that delivers decent jobs and rising living standards needs to be based on more investment and higher productivity not on increasing household debt.”

TUC analysis published last month showed that household debt is forecast to increase at two and a half times the rate of wages over this parliament and that unsecured debt will average £25,000 by 2019. The projections are based on the Office for Budget Responsibility’s own forecasts.

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