UK budget: Hunt tries to jolt economy with childcare, pension reforms

, Britain’s is the only Group of Seven economy yet to recover its pre-pandemic size, having previously suffered a decade of near-stagnant income growth.

Despite that help, and lower inflation than previously expected, living standards remain on track for a record fall over the two years to the end of March 2024. Independent forecasters at the Office for Budget Responsibility said it was hard to judge the impact of Hunt’s attempts to get more workers into the jobs market and it warned that the share of people in work or looking for it was set to hit a 23-year low next year before rising.

Paul Johnson, director of the nonpartisan Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the incentives would cause more volatility for businesses. Hunt said the government would add 11 billion pounds to the defense budget – which has been stretched by Britain’s support for Ukraine in its war with Russia – over the next five years.A new set of economic forecasts showed gross domestic product was set to shrink by 0.2% in 2023 rather than contract by 1.4% as projected by the OBR in November.

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