PwC: Nearly Half of Households See No Benefit From Growth
Some 12.5 million households — 46% — live in areas where economic growth does not translate into better living standards, PwC found, describing a “stark” North-South divide. Spending power in Yorkshire and the Humber runs £1,917 below the national average; the North East is 6.6% adrift; the South East 9% ahead. Disposable income in Richmond upon Thames, at £35,448, is nearly double that in Hammersmith and Fulham. The findings land directly on the Prime Minister’s regional agenda before October’s Budget.
The report’s power is that it quantifies the intuition Mr Burnham rode to Downing Street: growth as measured in aggregate has been a rumour in half the country’s postcodes, which is why “wrong turns since the 1980s” resonated where GDP charts never did. But it doubles as a warning addressed to him personally — a prime minister elected on regional grievance now owns the gap, and the bond market is simultaneously confiscating the fiscal tools he might close it with. The Richmond–Hammersmith contrast, two London boroughs a river apart with a near-doubling of disposable income, makes the sharper point that the divide is not simply North-South but street-by-street. Watch whether the Budget’s regional measures survive the headroom squeeze; this report is the benchmark they will be marked against.