Four out of five UK workers worry about declining wages, new study shows

The Royal Society of Arts says the link between employment and economic security has been 'fundamentally broken' since the 2008 financial crash

Two-thirds of people say they have personal debt worries (PA)

Fears over job security and falling pay is deeply embedded among UK workers thanks to Brexit, the threat of automation and falling living standards over the past decade, a new report warns.

According to think tank Royal Society of Arts (RSA), four out of five UK workers worry about inflation outstripping pay packets in future. The findings show anxiety over shrinking pay in the future is widespread across all groups and not just those on low incomes.

The RSA said the link between employment and economic security has been “fundamentally broken” since the 2008 financial crash.

“Having a job is no longer a guarantor of economic security: more than 7 million people in working households live in poverty, wage growth lagged behind inflation for most of the last decade, and close to 8 million people in the UK live with problem debt”, said Atif Shafique, senior researcher at the RSA.

“Ten years after the crash, and we need a step-change. Community, place, identity and personal responsibility all have an important role to play”.

The study of more than 2,000 people found that over two-thirds say they have personal debt worries. Anxiety about high housing costs is rife among both low-income groups and those who identified themselves as being able to save comfortably.

The report called for the UK Government to focus on providing people with “a degree of confidence that a person can have in maintaining a decent quality of life, now and in the future, given their economic and financial circumstances”.

The RSA also said the introduction of universal basic income on a national scale, combined with better welfare, would provide workers with a “means to save”.

“The pay crisis should be the Government’s first priority”, said TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady. “We need a plan to get wages growing with more investment, and a higher minimum wage.”

Official data from the Office for National Statistics show UK workers suffered eight consecutive months of declining real wages in October, with wage growth well below the 3.1 per cent inflation rate in the same month.

October also saw the lowest UK unemployment rate since 1975, but some economists pointed out that the decline was down to a rise in the number of people classed as economically inactive as opposed to rising unemployment.