Debt help need may rise as slow earnings growth revealed

The rate of weekly and annual pay growth has been revealed to be far below inflation, after new government statistics came out, something that may make debt management issues harder to deal with.

Median weekly full-time pay in April 2011 was £501, only 0.4 per cent up on the £499 figure of the previous year.

Meanwhile, the median figure for annual earnings was only 1.4 per cent higher than in 2010 at £26,200.

The weekly median was up by 0.8 per cent for private sector employees, while those in the public sector only saw their pay increase by 0.3 per cent, with this figure being affected by the fact that only the lowest-paid state and local government employees are receiving any pay rises while the rest have had their remuneration frozen.

Such figures are below even the target rate for Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation of two per cent, which has been substantially exceeded in the last two years.

In September this year it reached 5.2 per cent, the highest figure since 2008, although it has since dipped to five per cent and is expected to fall swiftly in the next few months by the Bank of England.

Such low pay may add to the woes of consumers as wealth declines in real terms, making it hard for those who are in debt to pay back what they owe.

The latest Office for National Statistics figures for employment said the average pay settlement in September was 2.3 per cent, which was less than half the CPI rate.

Posted by Paul Thacker