Welfare What to make of Labour’s childcare announcement 26 September 2013 by Giselle Cory Now is a good time to talk about childcare. Costs are rocketing but incomes are not. All the while childcare support has been cut. None of this has passed by lower income families who are struggling to make work pay. It is young mums in particular who are often forced out of the labour market … Continued READ MORE
Housing Search for a housing strategy 17 July 2013 by Giselle Cory The housing crisis has built up over time and can’t be fixed overnight. But there are things the government can do to make homes more affordable to lower-income families Much of Britain is unaffordable to lower-income, working families according to Home Truths, a report published this week by the Resolution Foundation. The report finds that a … Continued READ MORE
Welfare Universal Credit: a missed opportunity to help older workers 1 July 2013 by Giselle Cory We know that many people want to work into older age – yet many do not. So what stops them? For some, caring for family or friends can make paid work near impossible. For others, their own poor health can be a barrier. And for families on low incomes, it may be that work simply … Continued READ MORE
Welfare One size does not fit all: why Universal Credit needs to work for older people 28 May 2013 by Giselle Cory This blog originally appeared on the New Statesman The shape of our labour market has altered dramatically in recent decades. Among the starkest changes is the increase in the number of older workers – from five million in 1992 to 7.5 million in 2012. One in three people of working age in the UK is already … Continued READ MORE
Living standards Taking a local look: Household disposable income 24 April 2013 by Giselle Cory Today’s figures from the ONS show that household disposable income continued to fall in 2011. This is part of a longer term trend of stagnation and decline in incomes that began around 2003. As we showed in the Commission on Living Standards, disposable income per head fell in every English region outside London from 2003 to 2008, even … Continued READ MORE
Living standards Retirement trends in the UK 26 February 2013 by Giselle Cory We aren’t saving enough for retirement. This was one of the findings presented in Resolution Foundation’s recent audit of low to middle income households, Squeezed Britain, which showed that a massive 69 per cent of low to middle income households do not have a pension. Across all income groups the proportion failing to save for a … Continued READ MORE
Labour market Is underemployment the new normal? 28 November 2012 by Giselle Cory This post originally appeared on the Huffington Post Today’s ONS release confirms the scale of the rise in underemployment. More than one in ten workers are now underemployed, working fewer hours than they would like to – a million more than in 2008. Recently, this increase has run hand in hand with a flat-lining of overall unemployment, as … Continued READ MORE
Labour market Part-time work: two sides to every story 14 November 2012 by Giselle Cory A glance at the labour market statistics will tell you that there’s a lot of involuntary underemployment. The number of people in this position –working few hours or in lower-skilled jobs for lack of finding something more suitable – is worryingly high and has been for some time. At the start of 2008, 1 million people … Continued READ MORE
Welfare A falling reliance on state pensions? 24 October 2012 by Giselle Cory New data out from the ONS today gives an insight into the changing financial realities of the UK’s retired households. Stretching over 30 years from 1977 to 2010/11, the data paint a picture of rising pensioner income alongside a shift from state to private sources. Private income, such as that from private pensions, employment and … Continued READ MORE
Economy and public finances Spending more on less 27 September 2012 by Giselle Cory There has been a lot of discussion of inflation lately, as prices continue their upward march. The consumer trends data out today from ONS gives us an alternative way of looking at inflation. It shows that we are spending more and getting less on essentials like food, housing and transport. This is shown in the … Continued READ MORE
Welfare Does the Treasury want to link benefits to earnings? 21 September 2012 by Giselle Cory Benefits used to be uprated using RPI, a measure of price inflation. This changed to CPI last year. This is also a measure of prices, but crucially it runs lower than RPI. This move generated savings for the Treasury. It has also had an impact on living standards. For the last few years the UK has … Continued READ MORE
Labour market Looking under the lid of employment figures 12 September 2012 by Giselle Cory Employment has gone up and unemployment has gone down. This is good news. But it should not be taken at face value. A closer look at today’s data shows an increase in the number of people involuntarily working in part-time or temporary jobs. As the chart below shows, there has been a sustained rise in … Continued READ MORE
Labour market America’s working women 11 September 2012 by Giselle Cory This post originally appeared on Coffee House, The Spectator Blog We know that the growth of women in work has been a significant driver of household income growth in the UK over the last 50 years. In fact, children are now most likely to grow up in poverty in male breadwinner households. Today’s publication of the annual snapshot of … Continued READ MORE
Labour market Back to work? Not if you’re an older carer 12 July 2012 by Giselle Cory This blog originally appeared on Public Finance The government’s ambition to extend working lives is coming into direct conflict with the extra caring responsibilities imposed on middle-aged people Last night’s BBC One programme, The Town That Never Retired, sent 70-year-olds back to work. Some fell back in love with work, while others found themselves unable to do … Continued READ MORE
Labour market Why We Need to Take Another Look at Older Employment 15 June 2012 by Giselle Cory This blog originally appeared on the Huffington PostMore people are working for longer. One in eight people now work past their retirement age, up for one in 12 in 2000 according to new stats from ONS. This is good news. Working for longer is to be welcomed at a time when people are living longer, … Continued READ MORE
Welfare Tax credit cuts: a false economy 16 March 2012 by Giselle Cory This blog originally appeared on Public Finance If the Chancellor wants to help low- to middle-income households, he would be wise not to sacrifice tax credits, by far the most progressive way to help poor families Seventy per cent of April’s new cuts to tax credits will fall on households in the bottom half of … Continued READ MORE
Welfare What works in encouraging saving? 23 February 2012 by Giselle Cory This post originally appeared on Left Foot Forward There are many tricks that can be used to encourage more saving – but we don’t know if any of them work. That is the finding from a new report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies. In looking outside classical economics to understand what drives savings, the authors pinpoint four … Continued READ MORE
Labour market Beneath the unemployment stats, our jobs market is changing 15 February 2012 by Giselle Cory Unemployment is up. That’s the latest from the Office of National Statistics. Their stats released this morning show 48,000 people fell out of work in the last quarter, with the unemployment rate rising to 8.4 percent. For ministers looking for a positive spin, the good news is that employment’s also up, and there has been a slight … Continued READ MORE
