Chart of the Day: Goldman Sachs says you’ll be richer this year

Inflation is set to fall, utility bills should shrink after this mild winter’s lower fuel demand, and no major punitive tax changes are due in 2012. Last year the opposite could be said.

The result, according to economists at Goldman Sachs – who admit they’re more optimistic than other City conjecturers – is that real disposable income growth will rise by 1.4% in 2012. That may sound pitiful, but we've spent the past two years enduring sharply falling disposable incomes.

‘To be sure, we expect wage and employment growth to remain weak. But, without the additional burden of exceptionally high inflation and last year’s tax increases, 2012 is unlikely to be as challenging for household finances as 2011,’ noted Kevin Daly and Adrian Paul of the investment bank.

Oh, and the same team no longer think the UK will dip into a technical recession after some upbeat data for the start of this quarter.

In these bizarrely optimistic times, when rising markets and a string of better-than-expected economic stats cast the eurozone crisis in new Spring light, the Goldman economists don’t even add the usual caveat that a eurozone implosion would rubbish their forecasts. So I’ll do it for them: a eurozone implosion would rubbish their forecasts.