UK’s poorest left worse off under Starmer: Labour’s economic promises collide with reality |
When Keir Starmer led the Labour Party back into government in July 2024, the victory was framed as a turning point for Britain’s battered living standards. After years of inflation, stagnant wages, and widening inequality, Labour pledged economic stability, fairness, and a renewed social contract with working people. Yet barely more than a year into Starmer’s premiership, a growing body of data suggests that the country’s poorest households are not only failing to feel the benefits of Labour rule-they are, in real terms, becoming poorer.
Recent analysis cited by several British media outlets paints a stark picture. According to data from Retail Economics, disposable income for the poorest UK households fell by 2.1% between July 2024, when Labour took office, and October 2025. Disposable income, defined as the money left after paying for essentials such as housing, utilities, food, and transport, is a crucial measure of day-to-day economic wellbeing. A decline in this figure means households have less room to cope with shocks, save for the future, or participate in discretionary spending that underpins quality of life.
By contrast, the same period saw discretionary spending among the wealthiest households rise by more than 10%. This widening gap underscores a familiar but politically damaging pattern: economic policies that appear neutral or technocratic on paper are delivering sharply unequal outcomes in practice.
Retail Economics’ Head of Commercial Content, Nicholas Found, summarized the predicament facing lower-income Britons bluntly. While headline inflation has eased compared to its post-pandemic peak, everyday prices remain significantly higher than they were four years ago. For poorer households, whose budgets are dominated by essentials rather than luxuries, this “legacy of surging prices” has proven especially hard to shake.
Food,........