PEOPLE in Bradford are more than £1,500 worse off because of poor economic growth since 2010, new analysis shows.

The Centre for Cities think tank found the average person in the UK missed out on £10,200 in disposable income since 2010 when compared with predictions based on 1998-2010 economic trends.

Experts said the whole country, “including places that were doing relatively well before, have been levelled down because of the lack of growth”.

The analysis shows people in Bradford have been left with £1,550 less in disposable income.

This was less than the Yorkshire and The Humber average of £6,320.

Disposable income is the money a person is left with after paying bills, taxes and covering for the cost of living.

The think tank used primary urban areas in its analysis, which is a measure of the built-up area of a city, rather than individual local authorities. These are used to provide a consistent measure to compare concentrations of economic activity across the UK.

The analysis revealed 4.6 million new jobs were created across the country between 2010 and 2022 – considerably more than the 2.5 million between 1998 and 2010.

However, productivity slowed during the same period. It increased by an annual average of 0.6 per cent in the period 2010-2021, while this was 1.5 per cent in pre-2010.

In Bradford, there was a 6.5 per cent growth in jobs, but the average productivity growth rate remained roughly the same.

Dr George Dibb, head of the Centre for Economic Justice at the Institute for Public Policy Research, said: “Poor wage growth over the last decade or so is a damning indictment of a stagnant economy with no direction.

He added: “We need a serious and consistent strategy to return to a high growth and high productivity economy.”

A UK Government spokesperson said: “We are committed to levelling up every corner of the UK, investing billions to support community regeneration projects, connecting 25.7 million premises with gigabit broadband, and over 50 per cent of England is now covered by a devolution deal.

“We have halved the number of people on low pay with increases in the national living wage, and thanks to an above-inflation increase to tax allowances, we have also saved the average earner over £1,000 a year since 2010.

“We did so after two massive global shocks – Covid and Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine – which affected every economy worldwide. And yet, the UK has grown faster than Germany, Italy, France, Spain and Japan.”