Family disposable income grows for first time in seventeen months
The latest figures from Asda’s Income Tracker reveal that household disposable income has marginally returned to annual growth for the first time since October 2021.
In April, the amount households had to spend on themselves after paying taxes and essential bills, was up by £0.37 a week compared to the same period a year earlier, which ends seventeen consecutive months of annual contractions.
Figures from the Income Tracker also reveal that inflation has fallen below 10% for the first time since August 2022, slowing to 8.7% in April.
However, the easing of inflation and the return to annual growth do not indicate that the cost of living crisis has peaked, as household disposable incomes continued to fall on a month-by-month basis, down from £210 per week in March to £207 per week in April. This was driven by inflation in key categories such as energy and food.
The tracker also reveals that all age groups saw their annual gross income increase in April. Those aged 75 or over experienced the fastest growth in income, with average gross incomes increasing by a huge 7.3% due to the recent uplift to the state pension. Further policy changes, such as the National Living Wage, have led to gross income growth across all working age households.
Younger households spend the most and continue to experience the most shortfall, with a significant 3.4% decline in disposable income for those aged 30 to 49. However, these households are expected to return to income growth once inflation subsides.
Asda continues to support families during the cost-of-living crisis by keeping prices in check and launching new propositions to provide customers with more value each time they shop.
Asda is also offering customers the chance to earn cash which can be spent in store by signing up to its new Asda Rewards loyalty programme. More than 4.9m customers are using the programme each month and have already accrued £60m this year in their ‘cashpots’ which they can spend in store or online to reduce their grocery bills.
Asda remains the best-value traditional supermarket, having been named the cheapest grocer for a big family shop by Which? every month for the last three years.
The supermarket has also locked the price of over 500 family-favourite branded and own-label lines to give families more control and certainty over their shopping budgets.
Asda also recently announced that its hugely popular ‘Kids Eat for £1’ café meal deals will continue. The supermarket launched the offer for kids under 16 to enjoy a hot meal in any of their 205 cafes in June 2022 and has now served 1,600,000 million meals to kids from its cafes nationwide.