Living standards down over 13pc since start of recession National and household incomes have fallen due to mix of worst economic downturn since the Second World War and high levels of inflation. Data in the report showed that net national income per head (NNI) - considered a good quide to real living standards - held up in the early stages of the recession but has continued to drop as a result of the squeeze on family budgets from rising prices. The ONS said that NNI per head fell by 13.2pc between the first three months of 2008 - when the economy peaked - and the second quarter of 2012. This was nearly double the fall in national output over the same period, with GDP per head dropping by 7pc. NNI dropped by around 6pc in the slump that began at the end of 1979 and ran into the early 1980s but was back to its pre-recession peak within three years. In the early 1990s, the fall was 4pc and it took two-and-a-half years to recoup the losses. The study said the reason households income fared better in the early stages of the current slump than in the 1990s was "a result of unemployment not rising to the same extent as in the previous recession, and historic low interest rates reducing mortgages payments for those on tracker mortgages." UK quarterly unemployment rate However, in contrast to the recovery from the 1990's recession, as the economy emerged from the contraction that started in 2008, real household incomes began to fall; a downwards trend that continued to the start of 2012, the study said. The cause of this fall was primarily due to an increase in prices, such as fuel, utility bills and food. The increase in prices eroded the growth of household incomes, meaning real household actual incomes fell and therefore incomes would not stretch as far as they would previously. Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, said the wellbeing report showed that in the two previous recessions recovery was well under way by this stage. The counter-productive policies adopted by George Osborne, which stalled the recovery he inherited, are entirely to blame for decline in living standards. If George Osborne was a football manager he would be sacked by now," he said. Official figures this week are expected to show that the Britain has emerged from its longest double-dip recession.