Beyond GDP
In May 2025, the United Nations appointed a High-Level Expert Group on Beyond GDP, following a consensus agreement among all member states — the Pact for the Future — that the world's over-reliance on GDP as the primary measure of national progress has become untenable. The group's interim report, published in November 2025, is unequivocal: GDP remains a useful measure of economic activity, but it cannot capture well-being, equity, environmental sustainability, or the lived experience of citizens.
As the report notes, there is a growing and dangerous "gap between what politicians and citizens believe is happening" — a disconnect that fuels public dissatisfaction, eroding trust in government and feeding the rise of populism across the globe.
The expert group proposes a framework built on three pillars — well-being, equity and inclusion, and sustainability — operationalised through indicators spanning material security, health, education, environmental quality, subjective well-being, social capital, and governance.
The dashboard below applies this thinking to the United Kingdom, presenting the metrics that the Chancellor should be weighing alongside GDP when making fiscal and policy decisions. If we continue to optimise for a single number that tells us almost nothing about how people actually live, we will continue to get policy that serves the number rather than the nation.
Cost of Living Squeeze
The Cost of Living Gap: Why CPI Tells Only Part of the Story
Since 2000, CPI All Items has risen by around 95% — yet this headline figure masks far steeper increases in essentials. Energy has surged by roughly 210% (peaking at 300% in 2022), transport by road and rail by 210% and 170%, and food by about 115%.
Whole Economy Earnings have grown by just 140%, meaning energy and transport have significantly outpaced wages. The CPI's broad basket, diluted by cheaper consumer goods and technology, consistently understates the inflation households face on non-discretionary spending.
For anyone who drives, commutes, heats their home, and feeds their family, the real erosion of purchasing power has been far worse than the headline suggests.
Debt/GDP
UK National Debt: A Historical Perspective
Today's debt-to-GDP ratio of around 100% is treated as a fiscal emergency and yet history tells a very different story. The UK ran debt above 150% of GDP for most of the period from 1780 to 1860.
After World War II, debt peaked at nearly 250% of GDP, and yet the country proceeded to build the NHS, expand universal education, construct social housing at scale, and lay the foundations of the modern welfare state.
The sharpest declines in debt didn't come from austerity, but from investing in the productive capacity of the economy. These investments expanded what the economy could produce, and growth followed as a consequence.
The current fixation on debt reduction risks repeating the opposite mistake, cutting investment to shrink a ratio that history suggests is entirely manageable.
Real AWE Index
Real Wages: The Lost Decade
Today's real wages sit around 25% above their year 2000 level — but that modest headline figure masks a far more damaging story. After steady growth from 2000 to 2008, the financial crisis triggered a collapse in real pay that took over twelve years to recover from.
Between 2008 and 2020, real wages flatlined or fell, leaving an entire generation of workers no better off in real terms than they had been a decade earlier. GDP recovered, corporate profits recovered, but pay did not.
The recent gains since 2021 are welcome, but context matters. Growth of roughly 1% per year over a quarter of a century is historically poor.
When politicians point to "record employment" or "economic recovery," this chart tells the story they leave out: for most workers, the post-2010 era delivered the longest real pay squeeze in modern British history.