Tuesday, January 26, 2010

What's a 0.1% increase - £6.79 per person

So we've got economic growth of 0.1% this quarter which means that GDP is 0.1% up this quarter over the last so what does that mean in terms of real increase.

I can only find our GDP in dollars (thanks ONS) so lets take the per capita figure that is the GDP per person in the UK. Using the 2008 estimates this is $43,785 which in today's exchange rates is £27,169.53 that is an annual figure so lets change that to a quarterly figure by dividing by four

GDP per capita per quarter = £6,792.38

and we've seen a 0.1% increase in that figure which equates to a per capita increase of, wait for it £6.79

Now obviously these figures aren't particularly accurate as they're 08 figures and GDP has fallen significantly since then (by 3.2% in fact) but they give you a general idea about how slowly we're coming out of this recession.

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3 comments:

  1. I guess the question now is do we actually want small sustainable growth (less than 1%) with very low inflation.
    Obviously Gordon doesn't as it's politically inert; but in a world of dwindling resources, surely constant huge growth is absurd and unsustainable.
    We need to try to get to a society where well off people like you & I can be happy rather than greedy.

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  3. following your maths a 'record 4.8% drop' in 2009 is only £1304 per capita, whilst not a small amount for a lot of people, it is after all an average and hardly as dramatic as it has been made out to be.

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