Welfare Who will benefit from the tax break for married couples? 21 October 2013 by Donald Hirsch and Matthew Whittaker Universal Credit means that married couples with children will only receive a small proportion of the gains David Cameron’s announcement of a marriage tax allowance has attracted significant interest. The policy will make £1,000 of personal income tax allowance transferable between adults who are married or in a civil partnership, provided the higher earner is … Continued READ MORE
Welfare The perils of welfare dependency – but not the kind you’re thinking of 5 July 2011 by Donald Hirsch For the entire 30 years of my working life, reforms to our welfare system have marched to the drumbeat of calls to reduce “dependency”, by getting more people out to work. So hard have governments tried to achieve this aim that they have created a new kind of dependency, this time among working families receiving … Continued READ MORE
Economy and public finances Inflation and the poverty squeeze: where will it strike? 2 February 2011 by Donald Hirsch Of all the ways in which trends in living standards are changing, possibly the most important and least expected has been the insidious impact of inflation on the living standards of people on low incomes. For the first time in my lifetime, the worst-off people in Britain are getting systematically and steadily worse off in … Continued READ MORE
Living standards Will we catch the American bug? 9 December 2010 by Donald Hirsch The American middle-class has been complaining since the 1970s about their stagnating incomes. The economic growth that the country has seen since then has gone mainly to the better off. Households at or below the middle of the income distribution have seen no significant rise in their living standards for a generation. That certainly can’t … Continued READ MORE
