British households £11 a week worse off as high transport and food costs squeeze families

Squeezed: Family budgets have been hit by high transport and food prices

The average UK household was £11 a week worse off in July, according to the latest figures by the Asda Income Tracker.
Households had £166 a week of discretionary income to spend last month, down 6.4 per cent compared to the same period last year. The consumer prices index rate of inflation edged up to 4.4 per cent in July, from 4.2 per cent the previous month.
Higher transport costs, coupled with food prices and increasing unemployment, have all strained family budgets – the cost of travelling has gone up 16.5 per cent year on year while food prices have remained high despite food price inflation easing marginally.

‘The maths is simple - the rising cost of feeding the family, getting around and increasing unemployment add up to the biggest squeeze on families since the last recession,’ said Andy Clarke, chief executive of Asda.

The supermarket also said that typical earnings rose marginally faster over the year to last month but conditions in the labour market remained challenging.
Charles Davis, managing economist at think-tank Cebr, said: ‘Pressure on household finances continued to mount up in July as the cost of essential spending grows rapidly while wage increases remain slow.’

Energy companies British Gas, E.ON, Npower, Scottish Power and Scottish & Southern Electric have piled more pressure on family budgets as they all announced price increases in recent weeks.

And commuters are bracing themselves for further misery from January as rail fares are expected to jump by an average of 8 per cent.