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    The British economy is in a generation-long slough of despond, a slow-burning economic catastrophe. Real household disposable income per capita has barely increased for 15 years.

    This is not normal. Since 1948, this measure of spending power reliably increased in the UK, doubling every 30 years. It was about twice as high in 1978 as in 1948 and was in touching distance of doubling again by 2008, before the financial crisis intervened. Today, it’s back at those pre-crisis levels.

    It’s worth lingering on this point because it is so extraordinary. Had the pre-crisis trend continued, the typical Brit would by now be 40 per cent richer. Instead, no progress has been made at all. No wonder the Institute for Fiscal Studies is now talking of a second lost decade.

    https://www.ft.com/content/ef830f78-75ee-4b91-a48e-04defa0f96d4

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    This is not normal.

    Since 1948, this measure of spending power reliably increased in the UK, doubling every 30 years. It was about twice as high in 1978 as in 1948 and was in touching distance of doubling again by 2008

    Unfortunately, I feel the need to ask... what if this 60 years, when charted amongst the preceeding, let's say 1200 years, simply wasn't normal, but was a blip?

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    Not a new suggestion. There's a strong argument that the post WWII growth period was an unusual phenomenon at least partly born from the rare cross-class shared experience that came from the war. Creation of the NHS, free public education, those and other things that were a huge factor in that period of prosperity and yet conservative-minded people want to think that was just a part of being naturally British and they've been deconstructing those foundations ever since.

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    The following paragraph....

    Go back and look for historical precedents for this, and you will not find much. In the National Institute Economic Review, economic historians Nick Crafts and Terence Mills examined the growth in labour productivity over the very long run. (This is defined as the total output of the UK economy divided by the total number of hours worked; labour productivity is closely connected to material standards of living.) They do find worse runs of performance — 1760 to 1800 was not much fun — but none within living memory. Nowhere in 260 years of data do they find a sharper shortfall from the previous trend. The past 15 years have been a disappointment on a scale that previous generations of British economists could hardly have imagined.

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