Scots £23,000 worse off because of lagging income growth – report
People across Scotland could be more than £23,000 a year better off if income growth since 2010 had kept pace with previous trends, a report has found.
Research by the centre for cities think tank found across the UK as a whole, people are on average £10,200 worse off than they would otherwise have been if income growth had continued at the same rate as between 1998 and 2010.
It said the situation in scotland is worse, with the average person north of the border having missed out on £23,370 in disposable income, when compared with predictions based on the 1998-2010 trends.
In Aberdeen, it said people could have been £45,240 a year better off-giving it the worst performance in this regard of any town or city in the UK.
In Scotland's largest city, Glasgow, the report said people could be £23,500 a year better off, while in Dundee and Edinburgh the figure was put at £17,730 and £16,030 respectively.
The cities outlook 2024 report found at the city level, just seven places - Aldershot, Bristol, Derby, Northampton, Slough, Telford and York - had cumulative disposable incomes that were higher than for the period 19982010.
It said: "In every other city, people were worse off than if incomes had grown at the rate they did in their area between 1998 and 2010.
"Aberdeen had the biggest short fall-if incomes had grown at pre-2010 rates, the city's residents would have had an extra £45,000 in their pockets (equivalent to two extra years of disposable income)."
There search added that aberdeen had been" one of the most prosperous cities in the UK in 2010", with residents having at the time the sixth highest disposable income in the UK.
The think tank said the city has had a" difficult period" since then, as the oil and gas sector "struggled in the 2010s", with an estimated 9,000 jobs lost in the industry.
This is "likely to have impacted the amount of money spent in the city", the report added, resulting in retail jobs falling by almost 30 percent compared to just 6 per cent nationally.
With the report released ahead of this year's expected general election, Centre for Cities chief executive Andrew Carter called for "bold actions" from political leaders to support growth in cities.