A lot of the attention people put into following the news would be better directed at assessing long-term trends. The example I look at in this post is the key underlying facts about the UK economy, which I don’t think most people know very well, sometimes because they get distracted by noise. Overall, things have been going quite well.
Growth and inequality
Economic growth has been pretty healthy over the last 40 years, with average real incomes doubling over that time, and a clear acceleration in the trend in growth after 1980
It is less well-known that on most measures, inequality has been pretty flat since 1990, and the bottom 10% of earners have seen pretty good income growth, especially from 1990 onwards, with incomes increasing by about 60%. The picture that emerges is one of a rising tide lifting all ships:
The Gini coefficient – one measure of inequality has also been pretty flat since 1990
These measures of inequality are all after taxes and transfers, so they account for the effects of redistribution, which increased after Labour took power in 1997.
Unemployment
Unemployment in the UK has also been consistently low, below many of our European neighbours.