Families will feel richer this year than they have for more than a decade as spending power soars, the Bank of England declared yesterday.
Signalling an abrupt end to the six-year decline in living standards, Mark Carney predicted that households’ disposable income would rise at its fastest rate since 2001.
The average pay rise would double to 3.5 per cent this year, while cheap oil pushed inflation down to zero or below, leaving families with more money in their pockets, according to projections in the Bank’s quarterly inflation report.
Mr Carney, the governor of the Bank, declared the economy “robust” and the plunging oil price “unambiguously good” for the UK, even as he said that he might need to lower interest rates below 0.5 per