Analysis and action on living standards
On April 1st, the adult minimum wage will rise by 6.7 per cent – the seventh-largest rise in 26 years. Rates for younger workers will rise even faster – by 18 per cent for 16-17-year-olds and 16.3 per cent for 18-20-year-olds, as the Government pursues its policy of convergence with adult rates.
This briefing note analyses the choices the Government has made in the context of an awkward backdrop to the 2025 Spring Statement. It argues that the Chancellor had difficult work to do in bringing the books in line with her fiscal rules, against the backdrop of deteriorating public finances. It concludes that she was right to take action, but wrong to concentrate the pain so heavily on a relatively small number of disability benefit claimants.
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.
The 'Pathways to Work' Green Paper marks a serious attempt by the Government to tackle two major concerns: the growing spend on disability benefits, and the large number of people who are not working through ill-health. The proposals to tackle the former go much further than reforms suggested by the previous Government; between 800,000 and 1.2 million people are set to lose entitlement to PIP (worth at least £4,000 a year by 2029-30) – as well as any benefits that they (or others) receive that are linked to PIP eligibility.
The Government is due to publish a Child Poverty Strategy later this year, with a promise to bring about “an enduring reduction in child poverty”. In this report we focus on the Government’s headline metric of relative child poverty and look at what might be needed to achieve this welcome goal in the face of significant headwinds.
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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