# OBR warns Healey: Stealth taxes to blame for living standards slump

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/obr-warns-healey-stealth-taxes-to-blame-for-living-standards-slump/
- Published: 2026-11-04T16:18:17+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-04T17:36:10+00:00
- Original publisher: City AM (publisher lean: Right)
- Original article: https://www.cityam.com/obr-warns-healey-stealth-taxes-to-blame-for-living-standards-slump/
- Topics: Business, Government, Politics, UK, World

## Key points

- Frozen tax thresholds are increasing the tax take as wages rise.
- Weak productivity and high energy costs are also squeezing incomes.
- Real household disposable income is forecast to grow by 1.4% this decade.

## Summary

The Office for Budget Responsibility’s chief economist, Professor David Miles, told MPs that frozen income tax thresholds are helping to keep household disposable income growth weak. The policy draws more people into higher tax bands as wages rise, increasing the tax taken from incomes and limiting improvements in living standards.

Miles identified three main pressures: prolonged weak growth in GDP per person, higher energy prices and fiscal drag. GDP per person would be about 30 per cent higher if the economy had continued growing at its pre-2008 pace, he said; the Resolution Foundation forecasts real household disposable income will rise by just 1.4 per cent in the 2020s. The threshold freeze, first due to end in 2026, was extended to 2028 and then to April 2031, and Miles said a marked improvement in living standards would require substantial good fortune, such as cheaper energy or gains from AI.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.