BREXIT: INFLATION RISES TO A FOUR-YEAR HIGH

Inflation rises to a four-year high Workers’ wages fail to keep pace

HOUSEHOLDS were left paying the price for a plunge in the pound after inflation leapt to a four year high last month.

Sterling’s slump since last June’s Brexit vote has driven up the cost of goods imported from abroad.

It fed through to higher prices for everything from clothes and food to computer games last month, as the consumer prices index measure of inflation hit 2.9 per cent.

Foreign package holidays were also more expensive year-on-year.

The rate of inflation has rocketed 10-fold since last May, when living costs edged-up just 0.3 per cent.

The worse-than-expected jump compounded a punishing squeeze on millions of hard-working families.

With average wages rising by just 2.1 per cent, many people are enduring a real-terms pay cut.

The jump in inflation wrongfooted the Bank of England, who forecast CPI would not reach these levels until the end of 2017. Experts now believe living costs will peak at 3.2 per cent.

A new dip in the pound since last week’s general election shambles is expected to push import costs even higher.

The Retail Prices Index, another inflation measure which includes housing costs, rose from 3.5 per cent to 3.7 per cent last month.

Lib Dem MP Vince Cable said: “The fall in the pound and market uncertainty since the Brexit vote are already squeezing people’s incomes across the country.

“This will only get worse unless Theresa May abandons her plans for an extreme, UKIP-style Brexit, outside the single market and customs union.”

Stephen Clarke, economic analyst at think tank the Resolution Foundation, said: “No matter how hard people work, increasingly they are struggling to pay their bills.

“Too often, there is more month than money left after pay day.” TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Working people are still £20 a week off worse, on average, than they were before the crash – and now rising prices are hammering their pay packets again.”

A Treasury spokesperson: “The Government are helping families with the everyday cost of living by keeping taxes low, freezing fuel duty and increasing the National Living Wage.”

People are struggling. Too often, there is more month than money left ATTRIBUTION