Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
Quick, How Big a Deal is 43 Billion Pounds to the United Kingdom?

Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
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I gather everyone must know, since the reporting on Britain’s new Prime Minister Liz Truss’s proposed 43 billion pound tax cut never included any context. There was no effort to express the tax cut relative to the size of the economy, the budget, or on a per person basis. In fact, the reporting did not even make it clear that the cost is a one year figure, rather than a ten year number, which is now the standard in the United States.
For those who might not be intimately familiar with the size of the UK economy or budget, the tax cut would be a bit less than 2 percent of the UK’s projected GDP for 2023 and roughly 4 percent of its projected budget. It would be a bit more than 640 pounds per person (around $660 dollars). And, yes it is a one year figure.
But hey, you all knew this already, right?