The Seventies vs the Noughties

This is a quick comparison graph I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I’ve used the Maddison project database to do a comparison of growth in real GDP per capita (in 2011US$) between the 1970s and the 2010s to get a rough handle of individual prosperity over both decades:

Now, I‘m not in the least bit surprised by this result but I think a lot of people might be, to spell it out clearly: The noughties has been a terrible decade for living standards, far worse than any decade since WWII. The Conservative government that has managed the UK economy since 2010 has done an absolutely terrible job.

Why am I saying all this, mostly because with the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, Conservative figures have been dusting off their old ghost stories about how the wicked Corbyn will once again drag us back into the dark days of the 70s. On the evidence, we should be begging for a return to the kind of growth we saw in the 70s.