ONLY 2% of British voters say they have benefited from the economic upturn while just 18% more believe that they will do so in 2014, according to a new poll published today.

The online YouGov survey of 1666 adults earlier this month, commissioned by the Trades Union Congress, showed that most people believed the cost of living crisis would continue through the next 12 months with just one in eight workers expecting their pay to keep up with inflation.

The TUC noted how forecasts published alongside the Chancellor's Autumn Statement earlier this month showed George Osborne was planning to keep cutting public spending beyond the 2015 election with a target of reducing it as a proportion of GDP to the same level it was in 1948 by 2018/19.

But, it said, the poll showed voters did not back the plans for a permanently smaller state.

More than half (56%) agreed with the statement - "as the economy grows, I want to see most or all of the services that have been cut restored" compared to three in ten (29%) who backed the statement - "as the economy grows. I want to see most or all of the cuts retained."

Even 35% of Conservative voters, noted the TUC, wanted to restore services while a slim majority of UKIP voters (47% to 44%) supported the restoration of services against cuts.

Frances O'Grady, the TUC General Secretary, said: "Our new poll is bad news for the Government. Voters do not expect to benefit from the recovery next year, do not expect their wages to keep up with living costs and do not trust the Government to spread the benefits of recovery fairly.

"Above all," she added, "they do not share the Chancellor's ambition to permanently shrink the state. By more than two to one they want to see services restored when the economy grows."