PAY packets are worth less than 2008 in nearly two in three local authorities in a “damning indictment” of the Conservatives’ economic record, TUC analysis shows.

Real wages are below levels when the global financial crisis hit 16 years ago in 212 out of 340 local authorities, the union federation found.

Its research said the average worker would be £200 a week better off if real wages had grown at the pre-crisis rate, with wage performance across the country well below historic trends.

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “This is the same government that’s given us the most dramatic fall in living standards on record.

“The Tories’ failure to grow the economy — and their scorched-earth austerity policies — have decimated family budgets.

“Just imagine how much better off people would be if they had an extra £10,400 in their pay packets each year — and how much more prosperous the country would be.

“It doesn’t have to be this way. We can create a new era of decent pay growth again where families’ living standards rise rather than falling backwards.”

London had the highest share of real wage blackspots — with real pay lower than in 2008 in 94 per cent of its local authorities.

Even in lower-paid regions of the country like the North East — where incomes of those on the very lowest pay have been pushed by the minimum wage — real wages are still lower than in 2008 in half of local authorities.

Before the financial crash, real weekly wages grew on average by 1.7 per cent each year. Since 2008, average annual growth has been –0.2 per cent.

Britain has one of the worst records among OECD nations for pay growth since the financial crisis, said TUC, blasting the Tories for putting wage recovery into reverse by imposing austerity and public service cuts after they took office in 2010.

Official figures showed today that Britain’s wage growth has declined again in February.

Regular wage growth, excluding bonuses, fell back once again to 6 per cent in the three months to February from 6.1 per cent in the previous quarter.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “We will need more than a little bit of real-terms wage growth to change the fact that this is the first UK parliament in modern history to oversee an overall decline in living standards.”