U.K. Posts First January Budget Deficit Since at Least 1993 - Bloomberg.com
U.K. Posts First January Budget Deficit Since at Least 1993By Scott Hamilton
Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Britain posted its first budget deficit for January since records began in 1993 as the longest recession on record shriveled the nation’s tax take.
Government spending exceeded revenue by 4.3 billion pounds ($6.7 billion) last month, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. Economists forecast a 2.6 billion-pound surplus, according to the median of 16 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey.
Jobless claims rose last month to the highest since 1997 as damage from the recession extended into 2010. The slump in revenue in January, the annual peak for tax collection, adds to the prospect that the budget deficit will reach the post-World War II high of 12.6 percent of gross domestic product forecast by finance minister Alistair Darling.
“There’s just been a consistent procession of data which have been the highest borrowing figure for that month either on record or for many, many years,” Simon Hayes, chief U.K. economist at Barclays Capital and a former Bank of England official, said in a telephone interview before the announcement. “The degree of adjustment that the U.K. needs to go through over the next few years is certainly going to be difficult.”
Ugly
