MOST people are still to feel the effects of any economic recovery in their wallets, a new survey shows.

However, there has been a fall in the number struggling to make their monthly household budgets add up.

And pollsters said they had found an overall feeling that the British economy is on the up.

Dr Michelle Harrison, from TNS BMRB, which carried out the research, said: "While the mood is improving many still feel that they are not yet benefiting from the improvement in the economy; nor think they will soon."

The poll found a significant improvement in how people view the UK economy.

Some 38 per cent, think that it is doing better than it was this time last year, up 24 percentage points on June last year. And only 15 per cent now believe the economy is worse, down 13 per cent on this time last year.

But this is not translating into people's pay packets, the pollsters found.

Most workers, 59 per cent, said that they thought that their wages would stay the same over the next 12 months - 56 per cent said the same last year.

There has also been little change in the number expecting a pay rise: 25 per cent compared to 24 per cent last year. Or those anticipating a pay cut: six per cent, down from 10 per cent.

But fewer people were struggling with to make their household budget meet, TNS found.

The number finding it more difficult than a year ago has decreased from 30 per cent to 44 per cent, while a majority, 58 per cent, report no change in their ability to meet the household budget, up nine percentage points on June 2013.

Last month the Chancellor George Osborne declared that the UK economy was once again "on the rise".

And he called for a mood of "self confidence" in the economic recovery, to counter the pessimism he said existed.

And he said that the rest of the world was not writing the UK off, but "talking us up".

TNS Omnibus poll interviewed 1,195 adults across the UK between 10 and 12 June 2014.