‘Everything Is Fine’: UK Inflation Rises To Highest Since Early 2024

According to official data on Wednesday, UK inflation rose to its highest level since early 2024 at 3.8%.

Once again, the UK is breaking all the wrong records, with the highest rate of price increases among the world’s largest wealthy economies.

Why does UK inflation continue to be so stubborn, and what does it mean for everyday Brits?

UK Inflation: What the Data Say

The UK consumer price inflation (CPI) jumped to 3.8% in July 2025, the highest in 18 months, far overshooting economists’ expectations.

At the start of the year, UK inflation had cooled to just under 3%, after a volatile two years prior.

Last month’s figures will do little to ease the rising tensions in the UK economy and the heavy load of families already struggling with the rising cost of living.

According to the BBC, the most significant drivers behind UK inflation were a 30.2% month-on-month increase in airfares over the summer period and persistent food and drink inflation, which climbed to an annual rate of 4.9%.

The last time UK inflation was this high was in early 2024, when the global economy was still recovering from energy shocks, post-pandemic supply disruptions, and global commodity surges, resulting in higher prices across the UK and much of Europe.

Today’s unwelcomed resurgence appears to be less caused by external factors and instead, exacerbated by continued wage growth, tight UK labor markets, and rising travel and service sector costs, creating a higher inflationary environment.

Everything is Fine: What this Means for Brits

The renewed surge in UK inflation is already having widespread effects on British households. Higher prices for everyday essentials like food, transport, and housing have long outpaced salary increases.

The average salary in the UK, for example, is already 50% lower than in the U.S, as families feel the squeeze, and find it harder to maintain their living standards.

In addition, a wincing 11% of the UK is currently experiencing food poverty, as rising utility bills and grocery costs force households to cut back on essential items.

The UK is also experiencing the highest rate of capital flight among its global counterparts, with an estimated 16,500 millionaires already leaving the UK in 2025.

This depressing situation was superbly captured in Coinbase’s recent “Everything is Fine” campaign, a video that satirizes UK government messaging against the reality of the situation.

As everyday Brits struggle to feed their families, and services such as refuse collection increasingly worsen, the campaign suggests that some families are being forced to eat rat meat:

The subliminal message is clear: everything is not fine. Many people in the UK are living paycheck to paycheck in rented housing with diminishing services and higher prices.

The World Needs Sound Money More Than Ever

Amid the current situation and the new UK inflation figures, it’s clear that the country needs sound money like Bitcoin, that holds its value over time and resists the corrosive effects of inflation, now more than ever.

While governments expand the money supply at will to fund their reckless spending, it will result in a silent tax on the people, compounding their underlying issues rather than solving them.

Unfortunately, this is not a problem faced by the UK alone. Wholesale prices in the U.S. also rose far more than expected in July, providing an initial indicator that higher inflation will follow.

According to a recent video by Bitcoin media company TFCT, which depicts a society in decline, when America’s dollar was backed by gold, it forced the government to be “honest” and curbed the temptation to spend beyond its means.

The gold standard mandated restraint, but once the dollar’s convertibility to gold was removed, fiat money, effectively backed by nothing, enabled politicians to finance whatever they wanted, accelerating the reduction of purchasing power and worsening living standards.

As sound money advocate Lawrence Lepard frequently says: