Manchester experienced the steepest fall in living standards of any major English city between 2021 and 2023, according to new analysis from the Resolution Foundation.
The findings, published on Wednesday, showed residents’ purchasing power fell by seven per cent over the two-year period, compared with an average decline of 4.7 per cent across England.
Andy Burnham has frequently highlighted his record as Greater Manchester mayor while positioning himself as a potential future national leader.
The analysis also found that real disposable income per person in 2023 was lower than when Mr Burnham first took office as Greater Manchester mayor in 2017.
Sophie Hale, research director at the Resolution Foundation, said Manchester’s sharper decline reflected weaker productivity growth than other major cities.
She said the figures also captured the period immediately after the Covid pandemic, when Manchester may have experienced a greater unwinding of Government support measures, including the furlough scheme.
Ms Hale said: “This big thing that was going on here was price inflation exceeding income growth, which was happening across all regions, and it wiped out a few years of income growth, and Manchester had previously been growing quite fast.”
Sheffield recorded the second largest fall in living standards among England’s major cities, with real incomes declining by 6.1 per cent over the same period.
Bristol experienced the smallest decline, with purchasing power falling by four per cent.
London recorded a fall of 5.1 per cent.
Outside England, Cardiff and Glasgow experienced even larger declines than Manchester, with real disposable incomes falling by 9.2 per cent and eight per cent respectively.
Manchester’s average real disposable income per person stood at £16,500 in 2023, placing it below Sheffield, Newcastle and Liverpool.
The city’s average income was also 41 per cent lower than London’s, where real disposable income per person reached £27,900.
Despite the recent decline, Manchester recorded the strongest long-term income growth of any major British city, with real disposable income per person increasing by 40 per cent between 1997 and 2023.
The Resolution Foundation also concluded that Boris Johnson’s “levelling-up” agenda, launched in 2019, had failed to significantly reduce regional income disparities, which it said have remained largely unchanged over the past three decades.
Ruth Curtice, the foundation’s chief executive, said: “PM-in-waiting Andy Burnham has rightly put regional inequality at the top of his agenda.”
She added: “But turning ambition into reality will require investment in transport, housing and wider economic development on a scale that no recent political leader has come close to meeting.”
Ms Curtice warned that without sustained investment, Britain’s regional economic divides would continue to carry both economic and political consequences.
