Political Crossfire Forums

Lovely graph, but im afraid my analysis has not arrived yet, could you check with the kitchen?

Underemployment can't be analysed without a figure on how much the supply of labour has grown.

If the supply of labour has grown and the economy hasn't (which you can argue it hasn't since the late 90s) then three things can happen, a decline in wages, a decline in employment or an increase in underemployment - usually you will get all three at the same time.

Before you criticise the current government you may wish to remember that Labour's economic policy was built upon debt-fueled spending, an incredibly inflationary policy that had to be balanced by an increase to the size of the labour market to depress wages (particularly at the lower-paid end of the economy). It was the reason why in the 10 years after 1997 Britain had virtually no immigration controls. Underemployment is one of the inevitable results of that policy.

So it was Labour who screwed over the poor, the current government are just not improving things.