THE money Brits save each month has crashed to an all-time low amid warnings the UK faces a living standards crisis.
Just 1.7 per cent of our total disposable income — the amount left after tax — was put aside in the first three months of the year.
It came as our spending power, the cash we have to spend each month, slid 1.4 per cent. The tiny amount we put away at the start of the year was down from 3.3 per cent in the last three months of 2016.
The savings ratio has averaged 9.2 per cent of disposable income over the past 54 years when records began.
Frances O’Grady, boss of the TUC, called the Office for National Statistics figures “grim”.
She added: “With wages falling as living costs rise, many families are having to run down their savings or rely on credit cards and loans to get through the month.
“We urgently need to create better paid jobs.”
She said the UK was “at the start of another living standards crisis”.
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Lib Dem Vince Cable said: “Rising prices and falling wages since the Brexit vote mean families are increasingly unable to live within their means or save.”
The ONS warned “the underlying trend is for a continued fall in the saving ratio”.
It was the third quarterly drop in a row — the first time that has happened since the 1970s. Spending power has been hit by the Pound’s collapse after the EU Referendum.
Inflation hit 2.9 per cent in May, its highest level for nearly four years.
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