“While this fall in overall unemployment is welcome, today’s figures show that young people and the long-term unemployed are being left behind. Under David Cameron over 850,000 young people are unemployed and there are still over 100,000 more people out of work for two years or more than in 2010.

 

"Average earnings have finally crept up above CPI inflation, though only when bonuses are included, and there is a huge amount of lost ground to catch up. Working people are now over £1,600 a year worse off than when David Cameron came to office and the link between the wealth of the nation and family finances remains broken. While the top one per cent have seen their share of national income rise over the last year, the bottom 90 per cent have seen theirs fall. It’s totally out of touch for the Tories to try and claim the cost-of-living crisis faced by hardworking Britain is suddenly over.

 

"Thousands of people in work are struggling to make ends meet because the government’s failure to make work pay and tackle the cost-of-living crisis. Since 2010 there has been a staggering sixty per cent increase in working people claiming housing benefit because they can’t afford to pay their rent, costing taxpayers an extra £4.8 billion.

 

"The government should introduce Labour’s Compulsory Jobs Guarantee to get young people off benefits and into work. A Labour government will tackle the cost-of-living crisis by freezing gas and electricity bills. And we’ll make work pay by restoring the value of the national minimum wage and getting more employers to pay a living wage.”