‘Merlin’ ballet will now open next year

ARTS: Northern Ballet has postponed the premiere of Merlin due to the coronavirus lockdown.

The Leeds-based company has been unable to start rehearsals or work on sets and costumes due to the pandemic. The production was due to open this year, but it will now take place in September 2021 followed by a national tour.

WORKING AGE households have experienced the biggest immediate shock to their incomes in nearly half a century, according to a think-tank.

The coronavirus crisis has triggered a 4.5 per cent fall in typical working age household incomes, the Resolution Foundation said.

It calculated the fall by comparing the months leading up to the crisis with the situation in May this year.

According to the Foundation’s Living Standards Audit, this was the biggest short-term income drop since the oil crisisinduced inflation spikes of the mid-1970s.

Government support has cushioned the shock for millions of people, but the report warned that further income shocks could be on the horizon.

It said that, without Government intervention to strengthen the social security safety net, the

ADAM CORLETT: The pandemic has triggered a 4.5pc fall in typical income, a think-tank estimates.

incomes of the poorest fifth of households could have fallen by as much as eight per cent.

The Foundation said that a further income shock could be due next year if the Government proceeds with plans to withdraw the recent increase in Universal Credit.

Allowing it to expire next April would delay hopes of a post-Covid-19 living standards recovery for millions of low-to-middle income households, the Foundation argued.

The Foundation focuses on improving the living standards of those on low-to-middle incomes. It said the coronavirus crisis had come on top of a poor decade for income growth.

The 2010s was a “disastrous decade for living standards”, the report said, starting in the aftermath of the previous financial crisis, and with a post-Brexit referendum inflation spike holding back real incomes in the later part of the decade.

Adam Corlett, senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “Living standards across Britain stagnated in the years running up to the crisis, and fell for the poorest families.

“That stagnation has now given way to the biggest immediate income shock since the mid-1970s, as Britain’s economy – and much of its workforce – went into lockdown.”