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Prices rose at their lowest rate for five years last month — but most people still have less to spend thanks to rock-bottom wages.
Official figures showed CPI inflation, which excludes housing costs, at 1.5 per cent over the 12 months to August.
RPI — used to calculate benefit increases before a devious switch to the lower measure by Chancellor George Osborne — stood at 2.4 per cent.
But both figures made grim reading for British workers, whose pay rose by a mere 0.6 per cent in the year to June.
TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said that the fight against the wages slump should now become a national crusade.
“British workers have faced pay cuts deeper than at any time since the 1920s,” she said.
“The priority now has to be wage rises to ensure a sustained economic recovery and a return to growing living standards.”
That means that in real terms people’s buying power has shrunk again, with experts warning that it will take years to make up the cash lost since 2008.
