Analysis and action on living standards
Right to Buy has been a cornerstone of housing policy in England since its introduction in 1980, and has enabled over two million council tenants to purchase their homes at a substantial discount. But the long-term failure to replace the homes sold has significantly depleted the social housing stock, driving up the housing benefit bill as a result.
A long-standing finding is that British households on low-to-middle incomes are poorer than their counterparts in many advanced economies. This result comes from comparing the incomes of this group to price levels in their respective countries. But these price measures typically reflect the spending of all families, not just those on low-to-middle incomes. In this Spotlight, we correct for this by adjusting for the spending habits of poorer households. Doing so suggests that aggregate measures understate how expensive Britain really is for low-to-middle income households.
The Resolution Foundation is an independent think-tank focused on improving living standards for those on low-to-middle incomes. We work across a wide range of economic and social policy areas, combining our core purpose with a commitment to analytical rigour.
Like most countries, the UK is ageing – over the past five decades its median age has risen from 34 to 41. This deep demographic trend has all sorts of implications for public policy, not least the need to find greater resources to provide care for a growing elderly population. What is less well appreciated is that this ageing is playing out differently in different parts of the country – both in terms of places’ age profile, but also in terms of the rate at which places are ageing.
2025 will be a year with a bigger role for the state. Jeremy Hunt cut taxes in his last two Budgets and planned to pay for them with real-terms cuts to public spending in many areas. Rachel Reeves’s October Budget reversed these plans, pivoting to increasing spending on public services as a share of the economy next year, and then keeping it above current levels for the rest of the decade. In this New Year Outlook, we consider what this means for the UK economy and living standards in 2025.
The Resolution Foundation calculates the real Living Wage – a voluntary hourly pay rate that is based on what families need to get by. The current national rate is:
Resolution Ventures exists to back innovative start-ups seeking to change the world of work for the better and early-stage ventures seeking to improve the prospects of low-to-middle income Britain.
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Evaluating the economic importance of intergenerational exchanges including housing assistance, childcare and other unpaid care, and financial aid.
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