OECD predicts financial cost of Britain leaving EU

LONDON

Britain’s exit from the EU could cost workers the equivalent of a month’s salary by 2020, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said Wednesday.

The organization said leaving the EU in a referendum due to be held on June 23 could see the U.K.’s gross domestic product fall by more than 3 percent by the end of the decade, costing each household an average of £2,200 ($3,200).

“Leaving Europe would impose a Brexit tax on generations to come,” OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria said in a statement on the group's website. “Instead of funding public services, this tax would be a pure deadweight loss, with no economic benefit.”

Last week, the Office for National Statistics put the average British salary at £2,133 a month.

Those in favor of Britain leaving the EU dismissed the OECD’s calculations as “extremely pessimistic and unrealistic”, adding that it had previously acknowledged Britain’s economy would continue to grow if it left the EU.

Separate official figures released Wednesday revealed U.K. growth slowed to 0.4 percent in the first quarter of 2016, down from 0.6 percent in the previous quarter.

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said the figures were a warning that the threat of Brexit was “weighing on our economy.”

He said: “Investments and building are being delayed and another group of international experts, the OECD, confirms British families would be worse off if we leave the EU.”

LONDON

Britain’s exit from the EU could cost workers the equivalent of a month’s salary by 2020, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said Wednesday.

Last week, the Office for National Statistics put the average British salary at £2,133 a month.

Separate official figures released Wednesday revealed U.K. growth slowed to 0.4 percent in the first quarter of 2016, down from 0.6 percent in the previous quarter.

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said the figures were a warning that the threat of Brexit was “weighing on our economy.”

He said: “Investments and building are being delayed and another group of international experts, the OECD, confirms British families would be worse off if we leave the EU.”