Growth was so uneven in the first three months of 2013, with March a lot stronger than January, that the economist Geoffrey Dicks actually thinks the second quarter estimate could be a lot higher - even as high as 1%. But even growth of 0.5% would be the fastest we've seen in nearly two years [if you ignore the heavily distorted period around the Olympics].
Growth at an annualised rate of 2% would not usually be a cause for such celebration. And the recent revisions to past GDP data mean we are even further from our 2007 level of output than previously thought. UK living standards - real GDP per head - are now 7.6% lower than at the end of 2007. At this stage in past recoveries, income per head has typically been about 8% higher than when the downturn began.
The Office for National Statistics now reckons that households saved 4.2% of their income in the first quarter of 2013. That's down from 7.4% the year before, and the lowest in four years. Figures out today from the Bank of England show that households, on average, increased the amount of equity in their homes by £8.8bn in the first quarter of 2013.
That does not feel like a very solid basis for the recovery, when most people's earnings are still falling, in real terms, and households are still sitting on a large amount of debt.
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