Resolution Foundation’s Global Wake-Up Call: How the World Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wage Freeze

The Resolution Foundation, a modest think-tank headquartered in a grayish corner of London, has spent the past fifteen years doing something almost quaint: publishing numbers that actually reflect what life feels like for the bottom 90 percent of humanity. In a world where central bankers treat 2 percent inflation like a holy relic and billionaires race each other to the thermosphere, the Foundation’s annual Living Standards Audit arrives with the subtlety of a brick wrapped in a spreadsheet—then quietly detonates.

This year’s edition, released last week, is no exception. The headline finding—that typical household incomes in the UK are on track to be lower in 2025 than they were in 2008—would be grim enough in splendid isolation. But the paper helpfully points out that this is not merely a British ailment. Across the G7, real wages have flatlined or worse, while housing, energy, and the occasional carton of eggs have discovered vertical take-off. From Toronto to Tokyo, the middle class has become the muddle class, clinging to the ladder with increasingly sweaty palms.

Naturally, the international reaction has been one of synchronized shoulder-shrugging. In Washington, the Fed has responded by hinting at “transitory” pain—an adjective it has been using since the invention of the steam engine. Brussels, ever the poet, convened a conference titled “Resilient Futures,” where officials swapped PowerPoint slides and canapés. Meanwhile, the IMF—an institution whose forecasts are wrong with the precision of an atomic clock—has advised governments to “target support.” Translation: cut taxes for the rich and hope the rest buy cheaper lentils.

The Resolution Foundation’s true heresy lies in its refusal to play along. Instead of abstract aggregates, it drills down to what it calls “living standards”—a metric that includes the price of childcare, the availability of dental care, and the probability that your landlord will install a coin-operated shower. These are the numbers that explain why voters from Santiago to Stockholm keep electing populists who promise to burn something down. When the think-tank translated its model to Spain, Italy and Poland last year, the pattern was identical: median households treading water, asset owners surfing tsunamis.

Globally, this has implications beyond mere dinner-table grumbling. China’s domestic demand has stalled partly because factory workers can’t afford the gadgets they assemble. India’s celebrated middle class turns out to be about as thick as a chapati once healthcare costs are deducted. Even Gulf states—where citizens are cushioned by oil stipends—are discovering that imported Pakistani electricians expect salaries high enough to buy their own passports back. The planet, it seems, has run out of cheap miracles.

What makes the Resolution Foundation’s work quietly revolutionary is its insistence on time. While markets refresh every nanosecond, the Foundation tracks cohorts over decades, proving that the 35-year-old who cannot buy a flat today will still be renting at 55, only with creakier knees and a higher thermostat setting. This long lens terrifies policymakers because it reveals structural rot, not temporary hiccups. Politicians prefer hiccups; they come with expiration dates conveniently aligned to electoral cycles.

There is, of course, a darker punchline. The Foundation’s data shows that the last era of broad-based income growth coincided with the rise of cheap Chinese labor, Russian gas, and an American hegemony willing to subsidize global stability in exchange for copyright royalties. All three pillars are now wobbling. In other words, the only proven model for mass prosperity required a geopolitical alignment so fortuitous it may as well have been scripted by a drunken astrologer.

And so the Resolution Foundation soldiers on, publishing charts that look like ski slopes designed by pessimists. Its researchers know their numbers will be cherry-picked by whichever party needs an alibi. Yet each report chips away at the great neoliberal shrug: the notion that growth will eventually lift all boats, even as half the fleet is converted into floating Airbnbs. Call it gallows analytics—the art of measuring the drop while the noose tightens.

The world may not thank them, but at least the data dies honest.