INFLATION: Family budgets are being “shredded” by soaring prices, says TUC

Commenting on today’s (Wednesday) inflation figures, which show CPI inflation jumping to 11.1%, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said:

“Britain’s cost of living emergency is getting worse by the day. Family budgets are being shredded as the cost of food and energy skyrockets.

“The government must stop playing games and uprate pensions and benefits in line with inflation.

“But we need more than sticking plaster fixes. Unless we get pay rising across the economy we’ll keep lurching from crisis to crisis.

“We can’t be a country where nurses and teaching assistants are having to use foodbanks to get by.

“If ministers continue to hold down wages in the public sector millions of key workers will face years more of hardship.”

New TUC analysis published today reveals that nurses face a £1,500 real wage cut if the government pushes ahead with plans for 2% public sector pay rises.

Action needed on cost of living and threat of recession

The TUC says that to protect families from the surging cost of living, and to protect against a spending slump causing a steeper slide into recession, the government must:

• Stick to plans to uprate universal credit, benefits and pensions in line with inflation, and bring forward this uprating to before April. This must be the first step on a route to higher levels of universal credit, benefits and pensions.
• Impose a much higher windfall tax on oil and gas companies.
• Get pay rising across the economy by backing trade unions and allowing unions to negotiate pay rises across whole sectors.
• Give key workers in the public sector cost-of-living proofed pay rises.
• Raise the minimum wage to £15 an hour as soon as possible.