Households will see incomes fall by around 10% over the next year and will face an economic hit "twice as bad" as the financial crash, economists have warned.
As the energy crisis deepens, many families - particularly in deprived areas across the North - are set to face the impossible choice between "heating and eating", MPs were told today.
Economist Torsten Bell warned that in conjunction with surging bills, there would also be a "significant" increase in strike action - as workers demand fairer wages to cope with bills.
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He told the business committee: "We're on course without any further announcements for a 5% income fall this year and a 6% fall next year, put them together and that's more than 10%, so we're talking about a hit to household incomes which is twice as bad as we saw during the financial crisis.
"This is totally unprecedented, we haven't seen that anything like that in a century.
"Even with the big policy announcements this week, households are going to be getting poorer. They don't have lots of non essential spending luxuries that they can cut to pay those energy bills and that is really worrying."
He added: "It's blindingly obvious that you're going to see a significant elevation in industrial action admittedly concentrated in the handful of sectors that happen to still have large unions, but you'll see worker pressure that doesn't manifest itself as industrial action in sectors that don't have large union presences, that is totally unavoidable.
"That is what an energy crisis does to you and it's not going go away until the energy crisis goes away."
Citizens Advice boss Clare Moriarty, also appearing before MPs, warned that areas of the North would likely struggle more. She said: "People are very, very worried looking ahead to October and we estimate that at least one in five people won't be able to pay energy bills if nothing is done.
"We hear the messages about support packages, but actually, right now here on the ground we are seeing very large numbers of people who simply cannot keep the lights on and keep food on the table."
Incoming Prime Minister Liz Truss’s first major policy priority is said to be delivering a package of support for households.
The Daily Telegraph reported that among the measures under consideration is a scheme to freeze bills until the next general election in 2024 while the Times suggested the measures could also apply to businesses whose energy prices are not covered by the household cap.
Details have yet to be announced, with Bloomberg suggesting the Truss administration could directly fix a new unit price that households will pay for electricity and gas, with regulator Ofgem sidelined from its role in setting the price cap.
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