But the information provided by XpertHR, which verifies that median pay awards are 2 per cent below the official inflation rate, confirms a slew of reports that document the inexorable impoverishment of the working class.

The economic crisis is over, claims David Cameron. It is for his Christmas card list, as Ed Miliband calls the 1 per cent wealthy elite.

But for most working people, it's a long hard slog that resembles the labours of Sisyphus.

No matter how hard they work, the task of making ends meet is elusive as ever, since prices, rents and fares continue rising, mocking their efforts to make sense of politicians' platitudes that getting a job is the path out of poverty.

Uniquely in modern times the majority of families living below the breadline have family members in paid employment.

For them economic crisis is ever-present.

The government makes much of the boost it has given to the housing market by effectively nationalising part of the risk attached to home loans offered by the private banking sector.

While this has helped some people to move out of the private rented sector into home ownership, it has landed them with sizable mortgages that could become unmanageable if the Bank of England feels it necessary to increase interest rates.

The government subsidy to the private housing market will also reinforce the sharp division between those who own their own homes and those who rent.

Private-sector rents have risen twice as fast as wages over the past year, reducing still further the purchasing power of those unable to access the home ownership ladder.

As ever, the overheated London property market leads the way, with a 4.4 per cent increase in average rents.

Huge pressure for both rented and owner-occupier housing is bound to drive up rents and house prices and this problem could only be tackled by a massive state-funded campaign to increase the supply of council housing.

It would reduce the number of households - currently around two million - kicking their heels hopelessly on housing waiting lists and it would tend to slow the rise in house prices.

However, it would not affect the yawning gap between rich and poor.

Warm-hearted campaigners complain about so-called payday loans charging usurious interest rates or being screened on TV at inappropriate times, but they miss the key point.

Why are so many workers forced to rely on these loans to survive from one payday to another? It's because their wages are far too low.

Public and private-sector employers have been united in enforcing a pay freeze, backed by the tripartite parliamentary elite, as part of what Ed Balls calls "tough but necessary savings" to reduce the financial deficit.

Austerity programmes of whatever intensity are simply a means to mollycoddle the rich, boost corporate profits and force working people to bear the brunt of economic sacrifices.

Any party proposing an austerity programme has no right to expect working class votes for it. Nor does it deserve them.

A government manifesto based on the People's Charter Against Austerity is vital to provide a real alternative by squeezing the super-rich and big business and pushing up working-class living standards by raising the minimum wage to the level of a living wage.