This chart shows the real cost of beer over the last 20 years

Many of us will have noticed the price of a round creeping up once the pubs reopened after lockdown. But one statistician has decided to dig a bit deeper and create a chart showing the cost of a pint in relation to average earnings over the last 20 years.

Analyst Alex Collinson, who works for union TUC, said the point of the endeavour was to “flippantly emphasise how bad pay has been since 2008”.

His work, posted on Twitter, shows the early 2000s were a peak pints-per-wage era, while 2013 to 2015 was a “real low point for buying pints, with some recovery since then”.

The statistician was inspired to look into the real terms cost of a pint after heading back to his office’s local for the first time after the pandemic only to find that the establishment had “put its prices up from £3.50 to £5 a pint.”

“We came back after the pandemic and the round price had rocketed,” Collinson told the Big Issue.

The most dire time for pint drinkers was in 2015 – the year the Conservative party won a majority – with 1990 – the year that Margaret Thatcher resigned – having the best pint-to-wage ratio.

Recent annual pay statistics showed that while average earnings are rising again, in real terms the value of those pay packets are no different to back in 2009. 

Until 2008 wages rose at roughly the same pace as the cost of a pint, but since then beer prices have continued to increase at the same rate whereas wages have not. 

Collinson’s beer chart is a bit of fun, but soaring prices and inflation across all of life’s essentials are amounting to what devolved nations’ leaders called a “cost of living crisis” in the UK.

Between Brexit, the pandemic, inflation and the end of Covid support schemes, households across the country are facing a difficult winter. 

Inflation increased by 4.2 per cent in October, the highest in a decade. That’s more than double the Bank of England’s target and could reach five per cent by April.

This is down to soaring energy costs, experts said, as well as everyday items such as food and clothes getting more expensive very quickly.

UK households could be £1,000 worse-off in 2022, according to Resolution Foundation analysis, as the price tag on daily life combines with benefit cuts and rising taxes to limit how far Brits’ money can go.