BRITAIN suffered the highest inflation and lowest economic growth in the G7 since interest rates were ramped up in 2021, new TUC analysis has found. 

The union federation described the country’s economic performance as “dismal” compared to other leading economies, leaving families “clobbered” by soaring price rises.

Years of stagnation left workers “brutally exposed” to soaring energy and food bills as over this period prices shot up by 14.2 per cent while the economy grew by just 0.4 per cent, the research said. 

Across the G7 inflation increased by 10.7 per cent and economic growth by 2.7 per cent on average.  

Britain was also worse than the Eurozone average, which saw a 13 per cent rise in inflation and economic growth of 2 per cent.  

Only five countries in the OECD (Chile, Czechia, Estonia, Lithuania and Sweden) have done worse than Britain on both inflation and growth, added the TUC, with workers’ inability to spend in their local economies acting as a “huge drag on growth”. 

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “The reason why so many families have struggled to make ends meet and spend in their local economies is because of years of wage stagnation and years of dismal growth. 

“It beggars belief that 14 years on from the financial crisis, pay packets are still worth less than in 2008.”

Between the end of 2021 and the end of 2023 household spending in Britain rose by just 0.25 per cent a year — far below the historic average of 2.5 per cent, the study found. 

This was a seventh of the 1.85 per cent average increase in the OECD and five times smaller than the average for the G7.