Families across the UK will see their finances squeezes extended well into the 2020s thanks to Chancellor Philip Hammond's "grim" Budget forecasts, the Resolution Foundation said on Thursday 9 March.

The independent think tank warned that Britain is on course for an unprecedented 15 years of spending cuts and lost pay growth, with a date for meeting an overall Budget surplus being pushed back to 2025.

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"The big picture from yesterday's Budget is that the big squeezes on both the public and family finances have been prolonged well into the 2020s," said Torsten Bell, director of the Resolution Foundation.

"The focus on good news this year has hidden the fact that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has stuck to its pessimistic guns from the Autumn Statement about the fate of Brexit Britain's economy.

"The weak medium-term outlook for borrowing means we're still only halfway through the fiscal consolidation that was supposed to have finished by now.

"And while the OBR at least delivered some good news on borrowing, the family finances picture has actually deteriorated since the autumn. Britain is set for a return to falling real pay later this year, with this decade now set to be the worst for pay growth since the Napoleonic wars."

Family finances: Key points

Real average earnings are only set to

return to their pre-crisis peak (2007)

by the end of 2022 – 15 years on.

2010 - 2020 is set to be the worst decade

for pay growth for 210 years,

with lost pay growth of £12,000 by 2020.

Real average income growth is set to fall

to 0.2 per cent by 2020 –

lower than any pre-crisis period.

The combination of pay stagnation and

rising inequality driven by benefit cuts

means that this parliament

(2016-17 to 2020-21) is on course to be

worse for the poorest third of households

than the four years following the

financial crisis (2007-08 to 2011-12).

Source: Resolution Foundation analysis of the

2017 Spring Budget

He added: "Some households will feel the pinch more than others. The combination of weak pay growth and over £12bn of benefit cuts means that for the poorest third of households this parliament is actually set to be worse than the years following the financial crisis."

The Resolution Foundation's analysis found, among other things, that real average earnings are only set to return to their pre-crisis peak in 2007 in by the end of 2022 and this is set to be the worst decade for pay growth for 210 years, with lost pay growth of £12,000 ($14,591) by 2020.

The research comes as Hammond faces a backlash over a hike to National Insurance Contributions (NICs) from the self-employed. The row is over the Chancellor's plan to scrap class two NICs for self-employed workers from April 2018 and increase the main rate (class four) of NICs by 9% to 10%, with an additional 1% hike in April 2019.

The levy hike will cost more than 2.4 million self-employed workers £240 a year. "It's only right and fair we should take a small step to closing the gap between the treatment of employed and self-employed people," Hammond told Sky News.

"No conservative likes to increase taxes, National Insurance, anything else. But our job is to do what needs to be done to get Britain match-fit for its future."

The Treasury had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

Philip Hammond Budget