§ Mr. MacGregorasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish a table showing (a) the real take-home pay and (b) the real net income of a married 504W man with two children under 11 years of age in December 1977 and in December of each of the 10 previous years, all expressed in terms of December 1977 prices.
§ Mr. Robert SheldonOn the assumption that the man received the average earnings for full-time manual workers in each year the figures are as follows:
Real weekly take-home pay at December 1977 prices Real weekly net income at December 1977 prices £ £ December 1967 55.50 56.70 December 1968 54.80 57.30 December 1969 55.00 57.40 December 1970 56.80 59.00 December 1971 57.50 59.60 December 1972 62.70 64.60 December 1973 62.50 64.20 December 1974 65.40 66.80 December 1975 60.00 62.00 December 1976 58.30 60.00 November 1977 57.90 60.40 "Take-home pay" is gross earnings less income tax and national insurance contributions; "net income" is take-home pay plus family allowance for years up to 1976 and child benefits for 1977.
Average manual earnings for years up to 1969 are the Department of Employment's October Survey estimates of the average earnings of full-time adult male manual workers, updated by the index of average earnings to give an estimate for the following December. For later years the April New Earnings Survey estimates of the average earnings of similar workers have also been updated by the index of average earnings to December, except for 1977 where the April 1977 NES figure has been updated to November 1977, the latest month for which the index is available.
The price index used is the General Index of Retail Prices—all items.
For years up to and including 1974 it has been assumed that the employee was not contracted out of the graduated pension scheme.