Real wages in Britain have fallen by more than 10 per cent in the past ten years, according to government figures. Among developed economies only Greece has experienced a similar fall.
Ironically the influx of one million Polish workers and their families into Britain, while helping to depress wages here, had the reverse effect in Poland – the resulting labour shortage forcing up real earnings by 23 per cent.
The Resolution Foundation think tank predicts that the current generation of new workers will be the first since records began to earn less than their parents during the course of their working lives.
• A longer version of this article is on the web as Generation reverse.