“The next few months of skyrocketing inflation will be an inconvenient period for the [Bank of England] monetary policy committee,” said Paul Dailes, chief UK economist at Capital Economics.

Since wage charges are not growing as fast as inflation, and employers are likely to want to stick to a hard line on wages as they face higher national wage insurance taxes, households will feel income disadvantaged.

It is clear that working-age households with lower incomes will face the greatest difficulties, as they will be fully affected by the contraction in universal credit in October and will be hit harder than richer households by rising food and energy costs.