Could there be eastern promise closer to home than we thought? Recent projections show that on current growth trajectories the average Pole will be £500 a year better off than the average Briton by the end of the decade. As Mark Littlewood points out in The Times, extrapolate further and even “Hungarian and Romanian incomes will overtake us by 2040”.
For now, the UK is comfortably richer than Eastern Europe, with a GDP per capita of $50,809, compared with $38,125 in Poland (after adjusting for living costs). But while Britain’s economy has stagnated since 2010, Poland’s has grown at an annual rate of 3.6%. An economy that expands at 3.6% for 50 years will end up nearly six times bigger than where it started. But “if you crawl along at a mere 0.5%, your GDP will expand by barely 25% in half a century”, says Littlewood.
Many fear that unless something is done, Britain will end up with a 1970s-style brain drain. The age of the Polish plumber is ending. Instead, Britain’s best and brightest may one day seek work in a Warsaw start-up.
