Ruth Alexander
speaker
4,250 appearances
120 recordings
1 series
first heard Jan 2011
last heard Aug 2018
Ruth Alexander’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Well, the numbers have been revised upwards for last year.
And the Office of Budget Responsibility says the economy picked up more strongly than forecast in the last couple of years as a whole.
However, it has also said that before that, the economy grew unexpectedly slowly until early 2013.
But all things considered, I think we can give the Chancellor this one.
Well, the Chancellor's referring to the GfK Consumer Confidence Index, which is derived from a survey of about 2,000 consumers who were asked about their personal finance situation, their savings, how they feel about making major purchases, and the overall economic situation.
And the index has risen to plus four, and this is the highest since June 2002, so it is up.
But consumer confidence fell after the last election when the coalition government came in.
It was
Minus 20 when they started, pretty gloomy, and then it became minus 30 after they'd been in office for 18 months.
But since early 2013, it has been climbing strongly, although they have got a way to go if they hope to get to New Labour's high point of about plus 10.
But what these numbers really tell you is that consumers have been pessimistic about the economy and their personal situation for the past 12 or 13 years, and they've now just started to feel a little bit optimistic.
Well, he's talking about this because figures have been released from the Office for National Statistics showing that disposable incomes per head are about 0.2% higher than when the coalition government came to power in May 2010.
And, you know, as we've heard, George Osborne's really pleased about this, but actually it's not much to shout about.
For a start, being pretty much back to where we were in 2010 is hardly a giant leap forward.
In fact, we've been living through the slowest recovery in modern economic history ever.
And rising strongly, well, disposable incomes were at 1.9% at the end of 2014 compared to where they were a year earlier.
But it may be too early to say this is a strong upward trend.
Talking to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, they say these numbers do tend to be quite volatile.
And really, you'd expect all these three measurements we're talking about to be moving in the same direction because in a way they are all measuring the same thing.
Yes, they do.
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