Slow economic growth and three major economic shocks have meant households’ disposable incomes have grown very slowly since 2010, according to a think tank report.

Typical household incomes went up by just £140 a year, new analysis from the Resolution Foundation showed.

That is a total rise over the 14 year period of just 7% – or an average of half a percent a year – in the amount people had left over to spend after paying tax.

By contrast, disposable incomes rose 38% over the 14 years up to 2010, the poverty-focused think tank wrote.

However, poorer households had seen stronger income growth than richer ones, it said.

The Resolution Foundation said the 2008 financial crisis, the Covid pandemic and high inflation had all contributed to the slowdown, but that growth in general had also been “sluggish”.

That resulted in income rises “slowing to a crawl” it said, hampering progress in reducing poverty levels.

The state of the economy, and especially the squeeze on ordinary families through the cost of living crisis, is a central theme in the general election, with the Conservatives defending their record in government since 2010.

The think tank’s analysis found poorer households had seen the strongest growth in their disposable incomes over the period, in part thanks to the UK’s strong jobs market.

Looking at the poorest fifth of households, it said the one-off cost-of-living payments last year also contributed to bigger income gains.

But these gains were largely offset by the impact of what the report called “regressive tax and benefits policy decisions”, resulting in a 13% total overall rise in disposable incomes over the period.

The richest households meanwhile saw only 2% income growth over the 14 year period, it said.

The think tank said data from Eurostat, covering a similar but not identical period between 2007 and 2022, suggested the UK had fared worse when it came to disposable income growth than other leading European countries, including Netherlands, France and Germany.

“While global economic shocks have been a major factor, Britain’s recent record is poor compared to both its own history and many of our European neighbours,” said Lalitha Try, an economist at the Resolution Foundation.

“What little income growth Britain has experienced over the past 14 years has been driven primarily by rising employment, which has benefited poorer households the most,” she said.

The report entitled Hard Times was funded by the Nuffield Foundation, a charitable trust, and used data from the Department of Work and Pensions combined with jobs, pay and housing cost information.

It found absolute poverty had fallen 3.6 percentage points since 2010, but in the 13 years prior to 2010 it had fallen by 14 percentage points.

Relative poverty levels remained broadly stable over the last 14 years, but the number of children in large families living in poverty had risen, while those in small families living in poverty had fallen, it said.

The BBC has asked the political parties for a response to the report.

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EY’s new global chief executive Janet Truncale has ruled out an immediate revival of the Big Four accounting firm’s plan to split in two, unveiling an alternative strategy that involves slimming down its central bureaucracy.

Truncale told the firm’s 400,000 staff in a memo on Thursday seen by the Financial Times that the business would “recommit to working together as one organization” and that her new leadership team planned to simplify the way the firm operated.

“There is huge power in our global scale and connectivity. So looking ahead, we’re going to recommit to working together — with EY clients, our ecosystems, and each other — as one organization,” she wrote.

Truncale takes the reins on July 1 following the retirement of Carmine Di Sibio, whose attempt to spin off EY’s consulting and tax advisory business — codenamed Project Everest — collapsed last year.

That plan would have radically reshaped the industry, resulting also in cash windfalls for EY’s audit partners and freeing the consulting business from conflict-of-interest rules that prevent it working with the firm’s audit clients. After more than a year of planning and $600mn of spending, Everest was nixed by opposition in the US arm of EY.

Unlike multinational companies, EY is structured as a network of locally owned partnerships, with the global headquarters overseeing the brand, managing IT and setting audit standards.

The choice of Truncale, a Di Sibio ally, as chief executive had stirred hopes among proponents of Everest that the plan could be quickly revived, but Truncale has been signalling to colleagues that this is not the case, according to people familiar with internal conversations.

On a webcast with EY’s 14,000 global partners on Thursday, she said the issues that prompted Project Everest remained, according to people familiar with the call, but she said that no split was being planned.

Instead, she said she would make structural changes to the global operation, including reducing the number of roles overseeing EY member firms in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Member firms in Europe have sometimes chafed at the multiple layers of administration, while the US firm has agitated for cost cuts across the global operations, which spent $6.4bn last year, or almost 13 per cent of global revenues.

Truncale wrote in her memo that EY would make new investments in units that advise clients on transformation and sustainability, and would expand its managed services business.

The name of the new strategy for the $50bn revenue firm is “All in”.

“I personally love the name ‘All in’,” she wrote. “The name was extensively tested with EY clients, partners and people. We agreed that it captures the importance of working together to succeed.”

In a valedictory note posted on LinkedIn earlier this week, Di Sibio said he was proud of Project Everest. “The strategic rationale for it continues,” he wrote, “and it has awoken the industry to outside investment, including private equity investment. Above all, Project Everest has made EY a more resilient and brave organization, better prepared for the challenges ahead.”