Analysis and action on living standards
This report – part of our ‘Unsung Britan’ programme of work – provides the context for the Government’s ambitions to raise employment and drive up job quality. It describes the labour market experiences of low-to-middle income families and how these have changed over the past quarter century. It explores those families’ employment, pay, experiences at work, and their feelings about changing jobs and progressing in work.
Keir Starmer has promised “the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation”. But worker's rights, as with rights in general, are only rights if they are enforced. In this context, the Government's pledge to complement its new package of labour market reforms with a new single enforcement body is welcome. But in order to understood whether the new Fair Work Agency will succeed, we first need to look at the scale of the problem it faces.
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.
This report serves as the Resolution Foundation’s consultation response to the UK Government’s Green Paper Invest 2035: The UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy, outlining a 10-year plan for fostering economic growth building on eight key sectors.
Recently the UK has faced tough times in trade, juggling twin shocks of Brexit and Covid. While service exports have stayed strong, goods trade has struggled. With a possible further disruption to goods trade around the corner in the form of universal Trump tariffs, this briefing asks what our economic experience of the first two shocks might teach us about how to handle the next.
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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