MORE good economic news for the Government, and it would be churlish to deny it a few good headlines now that, for the first time since 2010, wages are growing faster than inflation.

Indeed, unemployment is down, employment is up and shadow chancellor Ed Balls’ flatlining gesture is returning to slap him across the face.

However, before we begin to believe that the good times really are here again, let’s look closely at the figures.

The average pay rise has been 1.7 per cent, and inflation is 1.6 per cent, so we are 0.1 per cent better off. That’s standing still.

In fact, that really is nothing if you believe Labour’s estimate that each household is £1,600-a-year worse off since 2010.

And even if you don’t believe that figure, we have all seen with horror our energy costs shoot up by about 30 per cent in the past five years – it will take an awful lot of 0.1 per cent pay rises to cover our increased expenditure on gas and electricity.

Then, if you take bonuses out of the average pay rise figure, it falls to 1.4 per cent, so we are still getting worse off.

And if you work in the public sector, you know you are receiving a maximum one per cent pay rise, so you are being squeezed even more.

With quite frightening austerity planned to continue until 2018 whoever wins next year’s election, no one in the public sector is going to be feeling better off for some time to come.

So while it is good news that the economic figures are beginning to tick up, let no one convince you that we are out of the woods yet. In fact, in the real world, the squeeze is still on – no matter what the headline figures say.