The Guardian view on the economy: the City is now too big for Britain | Editorial
The report released last week by the centre-left thinktank IPPR commission on economic justice comes not a moment too soon. In hosting a commission bringing together public intellectuals, representatives of industry, finance and tech, the IPPR seeks to publicise our failures as an economy on the cusp of a "decade of disruption". The topography of the economy features some very low valleys: as a nation, the UK is not generating rising prosperity for a majority; a high employment rate masks an increasingly insecure "casualised" labour force; and Britain remains a pretty unequal place. The UK is damned as a low productivity economy, investing less than our rivals, with an overall current account deficit that ranks the largest of all the G7 countries.
While a picture can be painted that Britain is doing all right, this does not reflect many people's experience. Although GDP has risen about 10% since the crisis, disposable income per person has been roughly flat. For some, hope is draining away: a survey by the Resolution Foundation found that 48% of respondents think millennials will have a worse standard of life than their parents.
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