People’s spending power has significantly decreased in the last two years.

The Government says people earned £613 in 2021 per week, when compared with the £611 earned per week in 2020, that is 0.3% more per week.

But during this timescale the inflation rate rose by just under 6% from 0.1% in 2020 to 6% by the end of December 2021.

The National Earnings Survey for 2021 was published this week.

With the cost of living crisis getting significantly worse as inflation has soared further, these figures highlight just how long the issue of stunted wage increases and rising inflation has been going on for.

The report came out a week after the government’s recent announcement of actions to tackle the cost of living problem, which is driven by rising prices for electricity and gas.

Inflation has risen to 10.8% as of this July.

The inflation rise of 4.8% in seven months has greatly affected people’s spending power and has led to families to choose between ‘heat or eat’.

The figures for 2022 will not be released until next year where we will see the impact of the wage increase which came into effect in April.

This survey was conducted before the £1.25 per hour minimum wage increase to £9.50 per hour approved by Tynwald in April 2022.

The wage increase is a step closer to the government’s plan to align the minimum wage with the living wage which was calculated to be £10.87 in May 2021.

In an interview earlier in the year, Chamber of Commerce president Kristan McDonald said: ‘This 15.1% rise was going to have to be “pushed onto the consumer” due to the limited time frame businesses had to implement it.’

Government figures also show that 1.3% of the working population people earned the Isle of Man minimum wage in the year 2021.

The report also said that 10.1% of the working population earned below the living wage at the time of the survey, which was £8.25 per hour.