Asymmetric inflation — where the cost of living goes up but wages fail to follow suit — lies behind the spate of British strikes. The war of words informing labour unrest reveals another imbalance: data points.
To begin with, more lower-paid jobs within certain industries pull down the median. That may explain the drop in real salaries in sectors such as computer programming and fund management over the past decade. For most employees, however, incomes are higher in real terms over that period, overall 5.5 per cent annually.
Britain’s rail industry, once the nation’s pride and joy, demonstrates how easily numbers can take diverging tracks. Trains up and down the country came to a standstill on Tuesday — and are due to do so again on Saturday — in response to a proffered 2 to 3 per cent increase in pay.