Treasury report shows we would be better off out per household.

There has been some controversy over the treasury report that said each household would be worse off to the tune of £4300 per year by 2030.

Much has been said about how disingenuous this claim is, by the fact checkers at the BBC and Channel 4, as well as by people like Liam Halligan at the Telegraph.

The main point of contention is that the figures are based on a made up metric of GPD per household which no one uses, or rather no one has used it before and no one is likely to use it again, apart from me, in this article.

The report also assumes that we love all existing EU regulations, would ditch none and make no trade deals apart from the EU. This is a highly unlikely scenario but we will go with it for now.

According to Liam Halligan's article we currently have 27 million households and if we remain in the EU the treasury assumes we will have 31 million. Its £4300 per household figure is based the GDP in 2030 with the population of 2015. It assumes a growth rate of 36% over 15 years in the EU and 29% out.

If however you assume the same growth but assume a lower growth in households (one of the main reasons for leaving) the maths work out a little differently.

Current GDP is £1.808 trillion. So in the EU it will rise to £2.459 trillion. If we leave it will rise to £2.333 trillion. Now if we divide £2.459 trillion by 31 million households we get a GDP per household of £79,349. If we leave we divide 2.333 trillion by say 28 million households and we get a GDP per household of £83,329 or £3,980 better off out.

I'm sure that isn't the number George Osbourne wants you to take from his report.