Britain and the US are poor societies with some very rich people- Average Polish family to be better off than the average UK family by 2024 (a far cry from the time when the UK was the biggest economy in the world when Queen Elizabeth was crowned)

[onthefencesitter]

Very interesting article from the FT-

www.ft.com/content/ef265420-45e8-497b-b308-c951baa68945

'Its a similar story in the middle. In 2007, the average UK household was 8 per cent worse off than its peers in north-western Europe, but the deficit has since ballooned to a record 20 per cent. On present trends, the average Slovenian household will be better off than its British counterpart by 2024, and the average Polish family will move ahead before the end of the decade. A country in desperate need of migrant labour may soon have to ask new arrivals to take a pay cut.

It’s a similar story in the middle. In 2007, the average UK household was 8 per cent worse off than its peers in north-western Europe, but the deficit has since ballooned to a record 20 per cent. On present trends, the average Slovenian household will be better off than its British counterpart by 2024, and the average Polish family will move ahead before the end of the decade. A country in desperate need of migrant labour may soon have to ask new arrivals to take a pay cut.'

I wonder how patriotic Brits feel about this. Do they comfort themselves with the fact that they are better off than African countries (which have often been looted and invaded and suffered from extremely unstable political environments as well as war) despite the fact that the UK is relatively politically stable and is at peace? yes in the past, the british working class suffered great poverty but it was not poorer relative to the poor in its colonies or other 'developing countries' . Certainly for the average UK person to be poorer than the average polish person who were liberated from communism a mere 32 years ago is quite a feat...

Agree, @Choopi
There seems to be no appreciation of how wide the Polish Diaspora has been since WW2 (but starting a hundred years before that). Many assume since they have personally encountered many 'Polish plumbers' that half of Poland decamped to the UK. Wrong. Poles are everywhere. The Diaspora consists of about 20 million people.

@RosaGallica I am not defending the exploitation of workers by landlords running HMOs - far from it. What I'm saying is that the delusional idea that home ownership is the be all and end all has contributed to the UK's utterly dysfunctional housing market. House prices are ridiculous, landlords exploit tenants willy nilly, there is not nearly enough regulation and we have a government that voted against mandating that rental houses should be fit for human habitation. It's madness.

All forms of living should be safe and affordable because housing is an essential - whether that is in a house share because that is what you like, whether it's in a rented home or whether it's owned.

There's also the assumption that this is bad for some reason. I don't see anything bad with people moving to better themselves. Many Brits did it in the early 80s when wages were better elsewhere.

Polish people also worked (and work) in Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, France, Denmark, the US, etc.
Indeed you're correct.
The UK alone didn't boost the Polish economy.
They've spread wide and worked hard.

Of course, if you mention this, you are accused of talking the country down.

This country is not bad, but it could be so much better for a lot more people. But if you don't know how much better it could be, then you just don't know...

The figures for household disposable income tell a story.

1 in 5 households have NEGATIVE disposable income of £60 a week after they spend on things like housing and food.In other words, they fall £60 a week short of money they need to spend on essentials

1 in 5 households have £7 a week

1 in 5 households have £78 a week.

And 1 in 5 households have an average of £775 a week of disposable income.

That is such a difference

corporate.asda.com/media-library/document/asda-income-tracker-july-2022/_proxyDocument?id=00000182-34a3-d424-a1fa-7ee36f4b0000

If Poland is such a utopia are so man

If Poland is such a utopia why are so many of them here living in shitty accommodation and doing shitty jobs?
Please explain that

”Average” should give a clue.
1 person earns 100kk
4 people earn 10k

Average wage in this group is 28k.

The future of Poland in 2024 doesn’t look too rosy with current populist government fucking up economy and clinging into power so I’d not take seriously what they’ve written in this article.

It’s true though that British society is getting shafted- rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer. Seems like “I’m alright Jack” attitude is present in all aspects of life. Only the strong survive?

As somebody earlier pointed out there’s no responsibility and consequences anywhere now. Avoidance and passing from pillar to post is everywhere.

Tory have no qualms in destabilising the country for personal gains.
Britain needs the government that would act in best interest of the country and its citizens. This one is certainly not.

@Georgeskitchen you are wilfully missing the point here. The point is that in terms of wealth and quality of life, Poland will overtake the UK in the next few years. Wages are rising in Poland. Polish people are leaving the UK because life here is getting worse. If you can't see where the UK is headed, you've got red, white and blue Tory blinkers on.

65 years ago, my home country was a colony of the UK and the GDP per capita was something like $500 per annum, a fraction of the UK. Today it is richer than every part of the uk bar inner London. Things change. We hope for the better but sadly for the UK it would be worse..

I don't believe Poland would be richer than London or the SE even based on these measures. But the UK overall outside these parts and select cities like Bristol and Manchester has southern Italy and eastern Europe levels of productivity and will get worse. Esp with these tax cuts, Londoners on average will enjoy £1600 extra in disposable household income while people in Wales and the north will enjoy on average £500 more..

I'm sure Brexit hasn't helped at all, but if you look at the wealth trajectory of average UK households v France, Germany etc the point to note is a big drop after 2008 and anemic growth since.

Banking has been, and remains, a the staple earner for the UK. The GFC did huge damage to the UK economy and there hasn't been any decent economic policy since to deal with it. Cameron's austerity policy slowed recovery, May didn't have time to rectify this, and Johnson had no decent economic policy at all. Now Truss is resorting to ideas that are 20 years out of date. The best hope is that the Tories get pummled at the next election. The worst government since Wilson's in 74-76.

GDP and GDP per capita are also interesting.

The UK could have a very high GDP. But when you divide that per person, it's not as impressive.

And then look at the amount of money people actually earn AND the amount that goods, housing etc cost in that country AND look at how it's shared out, and it becomes more interesting.

You could be on what seems to be a good amount of money but if everything is expensive where you live, then it's not a good amount of money.

I live on a reasonable salary in Yorkshire. But people living in London would struggle to survive on my pay.

Autocratic government doesn't necessarily mean that the economy wouldn't do well. It may not be good for the country, but macroeconomic outlook may not necessarily be related. Poland just entered developed country territory in 2018 so on a strong trajectory.

All empires and countries rise and fall. I think we would be like Turkey or Italy in the future, some really rich families, a tiny middle class with relatively ok standard of living and lots of poor people. I am just aiming to stay within the middle class! Middle class would need 6 figure household income regardless of which part of the country you live in due to inflation, need to pay for healthcare, depreciation of the pound, need to pay for essential services like private security, need to pay for full university fees, need to pay even higher housing costs for DC due to depreciation of pound leading to even more foreign and corporate ownership of properties etc. I think life would still be ok if you are in the top 10%. Top 3% would enjoy exceptional standard of living as their wages would be in line with global rich.x za

Economy might do well but people still might be poor. What are you trying to prove with your posts?

As for Poland being developed country since 2018… well, after 1990 we had a lot of to catch up on seeing as fucking Soviet Union has plundered the country every way they could for 45 years.

Haven’t lived in Poland for quite a few years now but still hearing on the grapevine how things are there. Not good at the moment with energy crisis looming and government not giving a shiny shit.

Thanks for the clarification btw pointythings. With the caveat that rental existences are forced more often than chosen over about age 25-30, what you say makes more sense.

That if we don't radically change, we would be overtaken by other countries. It should be a wake up call. A country like the UK should not have any part of the country on equal level or surpassed by any ex Soviet bloc country in terms of quality of living or wealth. We should be on the same tier as Nordic countries, France, Germany or Austria. Anything less is underperforming. Why should we accept being a poor country or the sick man of Europe?

I think that being in the G7 means many people think we are doing ok. It's deceptive really when you scratch below the surface and drill down.

I’m not Polish so can’t speak for them or the whole diaspora, but I’m pretty sure that, given this article is about the future not the present, it’s because they’re not time travellers.

The UK has twice the population density of Poland which naturally results in inflated housing costs.

The Nordic countries are often touted on Mumsnet, but it's not all perfect - wealth inequality is higher than the UK, substantially so in the case of Sweden. The Netherlands, Germany and Ireland are also less equal wealth-wise than the UK.

I'd be interested to look at the raw data behind this article.

Sweden and the Netherlands?

What data are you using?

@DdraigGoch I would be interested to see what data you are using - because the 2022 gini index has it otherwise.

The trouble is that many of these “upwardly mobile” people will be caught out in the general dive in living standards in ways they didn’t imagine.

I believe in that too.

If those in the trickle down don't have money they won't be putting it into the businesses and services that have been able to set up because of their tax cuts.

Up and out does work better.

That was proven when people got the one off payments during covid for tax credits etc and had more money to spend on during furlough.

I'm sure that was also the theory behind eat out to help out even if it did nothing good for the actual covid rates!

What do you mean by richer here? What is the per capita income? What variables are you comparing?

I am guessing the country in your post is Malaysia, which is the largest palm oil producer and exports oil, palm oil and rubber.

I also think it's pointless to compare to Norway. Norway has vast reserves of oil and natural gas and is 4th and 3rd largest exporter in the world. UK doesn't have such natural resources. And if you compare population density of UK to Norway and Malaysia, you will see how much disadvantaged UK is. 270 versus 14 and 98 per sq km and all these countries mentioned produce much higher carbon emission per capita.

I think Germany is a great example. They have higher skilled population and their economy gain from innovation and technology. It's not that UK doesn't have intelligent people, it used to be a pioneer in science and literature but years of corruption in politics has brought the country to its current state. I still remember the expense scandal from over 10 years ago but those MPs got away with it. BoJo and Farage got away with their lies in Brexit campaign.

I agree with PP above, UK needs some sort of revolution. Perhaps people should pressure their MPs to form better policies.

Are there though? I think in the early 2000s that may have been the case but since Brexit in particular many have moved away. I am a primary teacher and we used to have a lot of Polish kids but far fewer now. Most of the Polish people I know still here are married to UK nationals and whose kids were born here.

Gini coefficient for wealth distribution.