You don’t need to produce a lot of evidence in your macroeconomics exams but knowing some basic and key facts and figures can make your answers stand out from the crowd! Here is a quickfire journey through twenty important economic numbers that won’t change before the exam – use them to support your answer and impress the examiner!

1. 20 Key Facts on
the UK Economy
in 2019
A Level Macro Revision – May 2019

2. Unemployment
is at 3.9% of the
labour force -
the lowest
unemployment
rate for over 45
years

3. There are
850,000 unfilled
job vacancies in
the UK labour
market
compared to
measured
unemployment
of 1.34 million
(LFC measure)

4. Youth
unemployment is
currently 10.6%
down from 20%
in 2014.

5. Record employment
rate in the UK. 32.7
million in paid work,
employment rate
now 76.1% of
population aged 16-
64 years.

6. Economic growth
in 2018 was just
1.4% - the
slowest rate since
2014.

7. Consumers drive the
economy - Household
consumption was
63% of GDP in 2018.
Government
spending accounted
for 18% and
investment for 17%.

8. Productivity growth
has remained weak -
labour productivity in
2018 was only 2%
above what it was 11
years earlier in 2007
(the pre-recession
peak level).

9. The UK CPI
inflation rate was
1.9% in March
2019 – back
under target

10. Average earnings
now growing at an
annual rate of 3.4%
(this is higher than
inflation). Median
weekly earnings
were £569 in 2018.

11. The household
savings ratio
has fallen to
4.5% of
disposable
income – the
lowest for over
thirty years

12. The minimum
wage in the
UK (for adult
workers) has
recently
increased to
£8.21 per
hour.

13. Average UK house
prices have increased
by only 1% in the last
year. Prices average
£226,000 with
median property
prices 7.5 times
median earnings.

14. Household debt
in 2018 was
133% of GDP,
with an average
debt (including
mortgages) of
£56,000

15. Monetary policy base
interest rates
(currently 0.75%)
have remained below
1% since 2009

16. MPC’s
quantitative
easing (QE)
programme,
stands at £445
billion of assets,
£435 billion of
which are
government
bonds

17. UK government
borrowing in
2018/19 was £25
billion, down from
£42 billion in
2017/18. This is the
lowest level of
borrowing since
2001/02.
Budget deficit was
just 1.2% of GDP

18. At the end of
2018/19, UK
government debt
was 83% of GDP.
This is now
stabilising as the
budget deficit falls
below 2% of GDP

19. In 2018, the UK’s
exports of goods
and services totalled
£634 billion and
imports totalled
£665 billion. This
gave a trade deficit
of £31 billion.

20. The current account,
which includes
investment income
and transfers as well
as trade, saw a deficit
of £82 billion in 2018,
compared with £68
billion in 2017. The
current account deficit
was 3.9% of GDP in
2018 compared with
3.3% in 2017.

21. The yield on 10
year UK
government debt
is currently very
low at 1.22%

22. 20 Key Facts on
the UK Economy
in 2019
A Level Macro Revision – May 2019