Data points to fall in UK adult life expectancy under the Tories!

Listening to Theresa May and her Tory cohorts, is like living on 'fantasy island'. One would never believe that real incomes for many in the UK are falling, inequality is rising, and the economy is barely rising despite more than eight years of unprecedented stimulus from the Bank of England. There has been a lost decade of living standards and dismal productivity growth. Real wages have grown more slowly since 2007 than in any decade since the 19th century and British households are piling up debt.  Although the official unemployment rate is at its lowest since 1975,  job growth has been in low-paid insecure employment - zero hour contracts, part-time and self-employment, which has increased by 23%. This explains, in part, why there is weakness in earnings despite the percentage of people in work being close to 75%.

Although we are told by the UK Tory prime minister that we are all living longer and are better off, recent data suggests that there has been an alarming rise in mortality among the white working-class in the U.S., the UK, and in other parts of Europe. Data released in the UK, shows that life expectancy for UK adults has declined for the second consecutive year in 2016. A Financial Times report says that - "The vast improvements in life expectancy witnessed in the first decade of this century have stalled." The paper says that it is difficult to say whether this data represents a trend or what is causing it.