Real living standards continue to rise

A few immediate thoughts on the reports on IFS's research results released today:

• comparisons with 2007/8 earnings are misleading, since we now know that this was an artificial peak, boosted by Labour's irresponsible fiscal policy
• conversely, the comparative figures for over-60s demonstrate how unfairly pensioners were treated under the Thatcher-Major-Blair-Brown administrations
• the slower recovery of younger workers' wages is a cause for concern, but it seems to me that for various reasons the pay of mature and experienced workers is bound to rise faster when recovery kicks in, and I would expect a similar rise in lower pay the further we get into recovery