Will it take three years for living standards to catch up with economic growth?

"GDP per head won't recover to where it was [before the recession] for around another three years — in other words, a lost decade for living standards."

Ed Balls, 25 July 2014

This morning's release of the latest set of economic growth figures caused an even bigger splash than normal, as it was reported that for the first time the UK economy was now larger than it had been before the recession began in 2008.

However Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls warned that it would be some time yet before growth in individual output caught up.

According to the Office for Budget Responsibility's (OBR) latest forecasts, this is correct. When real GDP is adjusted for population, it estimates that GDP per capita will next exceed the peak set in 2008 in the first quarter of 2017.

Of course, because this claim relies on forecasts, it may be subject to change, especially as it is now four months old.

Only this week, the IMF upgraded the rate at which it expects the UK economy to grow in the coming years, while the OBR itself has frequently revised its own forecasts over the years.

It might also over-simplify matters to claim that this represents a "lost decade for living standards". As we've seen in the past, living standards can be measured in many different ways, although GDP per capita is not one of the more widely used.

So while the Shadow Chancellor's claim is an accurate reflection of the most recent set of expectations put forward by the government's spending watchdog, we don't yet know whether it will take three years for GDP per capita to breach the high water mark set in 2008 in practice.