Monthly disposable income fell by £40 per person between Boris Johnson’s election victory in December 2019 and Rishi Sunak’s defeat in July 2024.

It is the first time in recorded British history that disposable income has been lower at the end of a parliamentary term than it was at the start, Sky News Data x Forensics analysis reveals.

Disposable income is the money people have left over after paying taxes and receiving benefits (including pensions). Essential expenses like rent or mortgage payments, council tax, food and energy bills all need to be paid from disposable income.

Previously published figures showed a slight improvement between December 2019 and June 2024, but those were updated by the Office for National Statistics on Tuesday.

There has been an uplift in the last year, although we’re poorer now than we were at the start of the year, and today we only have £1 more on average to spend or save each month than we did at the end of 2019.

That represents “an unmitigated disaster for living standards”, according to Lalitha Try, economist at independent living standards thinktank the Resolution Foundation.

Have things gotten better under Labour?

Disposable income has increased by £41 per person per month since Labour took office in July 2024. However, that masks a significant deterioration in recent months: it is lower now than it was at the start of 2025.

In the first six months of Labour’s tenure, disposable income rose by £55, a larger increase than under any other government in the same period. In part, this was down to the pay rises for public sector workers that had been agreed under the previous Conservative administration.

But the rise also represents a continuation of the trajectory from the final six months of the outgoing government. Between December 2023 and June 2024, monthly disposable income rose by £46.

That trajectory reversed in the first part of this year, and the average person now has £14 less to spend or save each month than they did at the start of 2025.

Jeremy Hunt, Conservative chancellor from October 2022 until the July 2024 election defeat, told Sky News: “The big picture is that it was the pandemic rather than actions of a government that caused it [the fall in disposable income].

“I clawed some back through (I know I would say this) hard work, and Labour tried to buy an instant boost through massive pay rises. The curious thing is why they have not fed through to the numbers.”

The £40 drop between Mr Johnson’s electoral victory in 2019 and Mr Sunak’s loss in 2024 is roughly the same as the average person spends on food and drink per week.

By comparison, since 1955, when the data dates back to, living standards have improved by an average of £115 per month between parliamentary terms.

Vital services, things like energy, food and housing, that all need to be paid for out of disposable income, have all increased in price at a faster rate than overall inflation since 2019 as well.

This means that the impact on savings and discretionary spending is likely to be more severe for most people, and especially so for lower earners who spend a larger proportion of their money on essentials.

Responding to our analysis, the Resolution Foundation’s Lalitha Try said: “Average household incomes fell marginally during the last parliament – an unmitigated disaster for living standards, as families were hit first by the pandemic and then the highest inflation in a generation.

“We desperately need a catch-up boost to household incomes in the second half of the 2020s, and to achieve that we’ll need a return to wider economic growth.”

Analysis by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which also takes into account housing costs, says that disposable income is projected to be £45 a month lower by September 2029 than it was when Labour took office.

We approached both Labour and the Conservative Party for comment but both failed to respond.

Read more:
Is PM making progress towards his key policies?

How are Labour performing in other areas?

Labour have made “improving living standards in all parts of the UK” one of their main “missions” to achieve during this parliament.

Sam Ray-Chaudhuri, research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, told Sky News: “Labour’s mission to see an increase in living standards over the parliament remains a very unambitious one, given that (now) almost every parliament has seen a growth in disposable income.

“Doing so will represent an improvement compared with the last parliament, but it doesn’t change the fact that we are in a period of real lack of growth over the last few years.”

As well as the living standards pledge, the Sky News Data x Forensics team has been tracking some of the other key promises made by Sir Keir and his party, before and after they got into power, including both economic targets and policy goals.

Use our tracker to see how things like tax, inflation and economic growth has changed since Labour were elected.

The policy areas we have been tracking include immigration, healthcare, house-building, energy and crime. You can see Labour’s performance on each of those here.

Click here to read more information about why we picked these targets and how we’re measuring them.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

The Conservatives have pledged to scrap Britain’s landmark climate change law that limits pollution, and replace it with a plan for “cheap and reliable” energy.

Party leader Kemi Badenoch said scrapping the Climate Change Act – brought in by Labour in 2008 and later strengthened by Tory PM Theresa May – would benefit cheap energy, economic growth and Britain’s declining industrial sector.

“Climate change is real. But Labour’s laws tied us in red tape, loaded us with costs, and did nothing to cut global emissions,” said Ms Badenoch.

“Under my leadership, we will scrap those failed targets. Our priority now is growth, cheaper energy, and protecting the natural landscapes we all love.”

The party did not provide any figures to quantify the financial impact of such a change, although certain parts of the proposals have been gathering support beyond Conservative circles.

While the plans drew support from within the Tory ranks, and are backed by Reform UK, they were condemned by conservation charities, scientists and business and energy groups.

The CBI, which represents more than 150,000 businesses, warned it would “damage our economy”.

What is the Climate Change Act and why do the Conservatives want to scrap it?

The Climate Change Act requires the UK to reach net zero emissions by 2050 and to produce five-yearly budgets to keep the country on track.

Net zero means cutting emissions as much as possible and offsetting the rest.

United Nations scientists warn reaching it by 2050 is necessary to avoid climate damages like droughts and floods and ecosystem collapse that would be very difficult to cope with.

But political support has been wavering: Ms Badenoch says achieving it is impossible and Reform leader Nigel Farage claims scrapping net zero targets would save £30bn a year.

The Conservatives said the Act had forced governments to bring in “burdensome rules and regulations that have increased energy bills for families and businesses, eaten away at Britain’s manufacturing sector, and contributed to a worsening in economic growth”.

They pointed to the controversial Drax energy plant, which is publicly subsidised to burn wood instead of coal to generate electricity, support for which is already wavering.

The party also cited costly legal challenges to developments and lengthy planning processes, something Labour also admits is a problem.

Claire Coutinho MP, shadow energy secretary, said the act is “forcing ministers to adopt policies which are making energy more expensive”.

“That is deindustrialising Britain, causing hardship for families, and perversely it makes it harder for people to adopt electric products that can reduce emissions.”

But it is not clear how their plans to maximise oil and gas projects in the North Sea would lower bills or boost jobs, as the fuels are sold on international markets, and reserves are dwindling.

Nor did it detail whether scrapping pollution rules for industry would boost it enough to compensate for other losses to the economy if clean investors pulled out.

How have others reacted?

Energy UK’s chief executive Dhara Vyas said the Act is the “legal bedrock that underpins billions of pounds of international investment in the UK”, including places like Humber and Teesside.

She said treating it as a “political football is a surefire way to scare off investors.”

Simon Francis from the End Fuel Poverty Coalition of NGOs said there is “no way to lower bills or energy security by prolonging our dependence on gas”, while Friends of the Earth chief executive Asad Rehman said the Party “[turning] its back on the science” was “political suicide”.

The Conservative Party said its environmental focus instead will be on enhancing and preserving the natural world.

Professor Myles Allen from Oxford University said the act may need updating, like the NHS does. “But you wouldn’t announce you were going to scrap the NHS without explaining what you were going to replace it.”

Ms Badenoch further announced today that her shadow cabinet will on Friday agree a policy of leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, which she also says is holding Britain back.

Before and since taking power, the prime minister has set out lists of milestones, missions, targets and pledges – things he wants the country to achieve under his leadership.

We have broken down some that have been repeated most consistently and started tracking them.

They have been split into two groups – things that relate to specific policy areas, and things that relate to money. Every time the data is updated, our charts will update.

How we are measuring progress

Illegal migration: Labour’s promise – “smash” people smuggling gangs and reduce Channel crossing numbers

This is one of the easier ones to track as the Home Office publishes daily updates on the number of people arriving in the UK on small boats.

Historically, the numbers have tended to be highest in the summer and lower again at times when the weather is not so good.

We are showing a cumulative annual total so you can compare where we are in the current year against where we were at the same point in previous years.

Healthcare: Labour’s promise – no more than 8% of patients will wait longer than 18 weeks for elective treatment

This target only refers to England, because healthcare is a devolved power that the national governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are responsible for delivering in their countries.

NHS England publishes monthly data on waits for elective care, dating back almost 20 years.

There was a period in the 2010s when this target was met consistently. But following that, wait times grew gradually but steadily for several years, and then rapidly following the COVID pandemic.

Despite what looks like limited movement on the chart so far, the Health Foundation say the government are currently on track with delivering this ambitious target. They add that serious effort will need to be sustained to get it over the line.

Housebuilding: Labour’s promise – build 1.5 million homes by the time of the next election

This target also only applies to England. It’s equivalent to an average of 300,000 per year, although Labour have always said that delivery will not be linear and they expect to make up a shortfall in their last couple of years in power.

The official data for the number of new homes added – taking into account any that have been demolished or are no longer habitable, and any converted (for example from commercial to residential) – is only published once a year, usually in about November, referring to the previous financial year.

There is data published more regularly, however, on the number of Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) granted. Because each new home needs to be issued an EPC, the number of EPCs granted and houses built usually match each other quite closely.

In our chart, we use EPCs as a representative measure to forecast how many homes have been built, which is replaced by official data when that becomes available.

According to that, about 200,000 houses were added during Labour’s first year in power. That means they will need to average 325,000 for the remaining four years to deliver on their target.

Clean power: Labour’s promise – at least 95% of energy from low carbon sources by 2030

We are measuring this pledge using data from the National Energy System Operator, an independent public body that plans and manages the energy network. It tells us what proportion of energy used in Great Britain comes from various sources, including low-carbon options like wind, solar and nuclear.

The government say that when it judges whether it has achieved its target, it will adjust for the weather, meaning the threshold may actually be slightly higher or lower than 95% depending on how sunny or windy it is at the time.

It has not confirmed exactly how it is going to do that, however, so we are just publishing the raw figures, consolidating data published every half-hour into a monthly average.

The Climate Change Committee, an independent body that advises government on tackling climate change, say the target is possible but will be difficult to achieve, and there is “little room for error”.

Violent crime: Labour’s promise – halve serious violent crime, including knife crime and violence against women and girls (VAWG), within 10 years

This is the least well fleshed out of the policy targets. The government has said a few times that it intends to halve knife crime and VAWG within a decade, but there are a few different ways of measuring each of these and more than a year after coming to power, the government has still not confirmed which it is going to use.

We do know that the pledge refers only to England and Wales, because the justice system in Scotland and Northern Ireland is devolved.

At the moment, we are using “police recorded crime” data published by the Home Office. We add together all crimes categorised as “violence against the person”, ranging from common assault to murder, plus sexual offences and robbery.

The Crime Survey of England and Wales is another source that measures people’s experience of crime, published by the ONS.

The ONS say that there is no single definition of what constitutes “violent crime”, though. They are working with the Home Office to come up with one, so we may switch to using that measure when it has worked it out.

Disposable income: Labour’s promise – raise living standards in every part of the United Kingdom

This is the least ambitious of Labour’s targets. Other than the recent Conservative government of 2019-2024, which had to adapt to a global pandemic and Britain’s exit from the EU, every parliament in recorded British history has overseen an improvement in living standards.

We measure this by looking at real household disposable income per person – how much each of us has to spend each month after paying taxes.

The figures published by the ONS are adjusted for inflation and seasonal fluctuations. Our methodology is similar to what thinktanks like the Institute for Fiscal Studies or the Resolution Foundation use, taking the figure closest in date to each election and seeing how things change from there.

Given that the target itself is unambitious, we wanted to be able to benchmark the improvements under this government with others at the same point in their parliamentary terms, so that’s what our chart does.

Personal tax: Labour’s promise – we will not increase taxes on working people

More specifically, the government has said it will not raise the current rates of national insurance, income tax or VAT, despite economists warning that taxes will have to rise to bring down government borrowing.

Even if these personal tax rates do stay the same, they do not tell the whole story by themselves.

The thresholds at which we start paying tax, and then start paying higher-rate tax, are set to be frozen until April 2028. They have already been frozen since April 2021.

That means that, as inflation leads to wage increases, we end up paying more tax on a higher proportion of our earnings. This process is known as fiscal drag.

Read more: What key budget terms mean

What that all means is that the effective tax rate – the percentage of your wages that are paid in tax – is set to rise over the next few years, almost by stealth. That’s what we are tracking.

We are looking at what average wages in the UK are each month, and working out how much someone earning that amount would need to pay in income tax and national insurance.

Keep inflation low: Labour’s promise – bring down food prices and the cost of energy and continue to target stable inflation of 2%

This one is a bit more straightforward again. The ONS publishes monthly figures on inflation, which explain how prices have risen over the previous 12 months across a huge range of goods and services that are relevant to our lives.

These figures are the best way of quantifying the cost of living crisis. They soared to their highest rates in more than 40 years in October 2022, before falling again – close to the 2% Bank of England target – under the final months of the previous government.

Our tracker allows you to see exactly what’s happened under Starmer’s premiership, in detail, and also includes the historical rates for context.

Controlling the tax burden: Labour’s promise – we will ensure taxes on working people are kept as low as possible

We have already spoken about tax on earnings. But that does not take into account things like VAT and stamp duty, as well as things like corporation tax, which we do not pay directly.

The best measure for this is the tax burden, which measures all the revenue received by the government in a given year and benchmarks it against GDP – the total value of all goods and services produced in the UK.

This means the tax burden is a measure of how much of the country’s economic output is being taken in tax, which makes it the best way to make international and historical comparisons.

Labour’s 2024 manifesto accused the Conservatives of raising the tax burden to a 70-year high. We use figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility to see whether Labour improve on that or takes it higher still.

Economic growth: Labour’s promise – secure the highest sustained growth in the G7

The G7 is a group of seven countries – the UK, the US, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada (as well as the EU) – that co-ordinate on global economic policy and international challenges. Economic growth refers to the change in GDP from one period to the next.

Labour have claimed they have already achieved this target, but that’s based only on the first six months of this year. We are looking at figures over a rolling one-year period, so each time you come back to this page, it will have the latest annual numbers.

Other than a period during the COVID recovery, the last time the UK led on this metric for a sustained period was in 2014. The US and Canada have exchanged the lead since 2023.

Our figures come from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a group of mostly advanced economies that collects and standardises international data.

Starmer economy tracker and Starmer policy tracker tools built by Przemyslaw Pluta, Sky News lead data engineer.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open-source information. Through multimedia storytelling, we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.