Food for thought? Household spending in the Great Recession

The global economic turmoil that has been ongoing since 2008 has been termed 'The Great Recession'. In the UK, household spending has fallen substantially- people are buying and consuming fewer goods and services. The dip in spending since 2008 has been considerably deeper and has lasted longer than the falls observed in the previous two recessions in the UK (which occurred in the early 1980 and 1990s). Researchers at the Institute for Fiscal Studies have found that the composition of these falls reveals some similarities as well as some stark differences between the response of households to this recession and the previous two.