Pensions & savings· Wealth & assets Automatic success for the people? 3 March 2017 by David Finch Political commentators love a good high-profile policy disaster. Think NHS IT systems or the poll tax. But successes happen too. Usually they’re small scale, making incremental improvements, often for specific parts of the population. But just sometimes they’re a really big deal – fundamentally changing outcomes for millions of people. When such victories come along, … Continued READ MORE
Labour market Workers on zero hours contracts hits a record high – but have they reached their peak? 3 March 2017 by Conor D’Arcy Workers on zero hours contracts hits a record high – but have they reached their peak? The UK’s labour market has been full of surprises in recent years: record employment has run alongside a record pay squeeze, while the passing away of the ‘job for life’ has been matched by a fall in people moving … Continued READ MORE
Labour market Is self-employment Taylor-made for people with disabilities? 22 February 2017 by Conor D’Arcy Whatever your job, it’s been hard to escape self-employment lately. Whether it’s plumbers, couriers or drivers, the pros and cons of working for yourself have rarely been far from the headlines. The Taylor Review of modern employment practices has kept the flame burning, with its recommendations likely to have consequences for all sorts of workers … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Prices & consumption 2016 was a good year for living standards – but families didn’t splash out 16 February 2017 by Matthew Whittaker Today’s annual Family Spending release contains the usual wealth of useful information on household spending patterns. It shows that overall spending was largely unchanged in 2015-16 (at £529 a week) relative to the previous year, once inflation is accounted for. Indeed, having fallen slightly from 2006 and then increased gently after 2012, average household spending is little … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Economic growth 2016 was a quiet year for the British economy – but was it the calm before the storm? 15 February 2017 by Stephen Clarke In politics 2016 was a busy year. The vote to leave the European Union; a new Prime Minister; the unexpected election of Donald Trump and Matteo Renzi’s failed constitutional referendum in Italy. However, it was a relatively quiet year for the British economy. ONS statistics released today paint a picture of a labour market calmly … Continued READ MORE
Labour market The gig economy is a modern twist on an age old world of work dilemma 13 February 2017 by Torsten Bell A visit to the impressive remains of Housesteads Roman Fort on Hadrian’s Wall is always a good idea, not just for the views but also for some incredibly well preserved latrines. On display are stone bases above a trench, on which would have sat wooden boards for soldiers to perch on. As well as offering … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Intergenerational Centre The annual Grigor McClelland Lecture 10 February 2017 by Torsten Bell Torsten Bell, Director, Resolution Foundation: Renewing the Intergenerational Contract: age and 21st Century inequality Thursday 9 February 5.45pm-8.00pm Alliance Manchester Business School East In July 2016 Resolution Foundation launched its flagship Intergenerational Commission that brings together leading experts from the business, academia and public policy to consider how government, business and wider society can fix … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Intergenerational Centre No country for young men? 9 February 2017 by Daniel Tomlinson In decades gone by paid work was a thing that men did. Families, the world of work and the welfare state were structured to make this the norm. But this mid-20th century certainty is no more. Women in the UK are participating in the labour market in ever greater numbers with the gender employment gap … Continued READ MORE
Housing Six key charts ahead of the housing White Paper 6 February 2017 by Lindsay Judge It’s been trailed all over the weekend, so it feels like we already know a lot of what is going to be in the much-awaited housing White Paper when it is finally published tomorrow. But will it really mark a sea-change in housing policy? Or be simply another document we can add to the pile … Continued READ MORE
Housing The delicate balance of ‘build to rent’ 6 February 2017 by Lindsay Judge How times change. Twenty five year ago less than one in ten families rented their home from a private landlord; today that figure stands at close to one in five. Renting is no longer the tenure of just the footloose and fancy-free who prize the flexibility that it offers. The private rented sector (PRS) is … Continued READ MORE
Labour market Enough of the pessimism about the rise of the robots 3 February 2017 by Adam Corlett Will all our jobs soon be replaced by robots? Recent headlines suggest so. But historical experience casts doubt on such sensationalism. Indeed there are reasons for us to encourage more automation, rather than worry about the harm it will do. It is common now to hear theories about how new technologies are leading us towards … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Inequality & poverty Back to the ‘80s: Projections for living standards and inequality in the UK 1 February 2017 by Adam Corlett and Stephen Clarke The UK economy has, in many respects, performed well recently. Last week it was revealed that GDP grew by 2 per cent in 2016, above the OECD average, and higher than forecasters expected when the country voted to leave the European Union. Employment is at a record high and average wages, although still 4 per … Continued READ MORE
Incomes· Living standards· Inequality & poverty Let’s avoid a poor rerun of the 1980s 1 February 2017 by Torsten Bell The 1980s deserve a bad reputation. Sweatbands, leg warmers, and diverse crimes against hair –think perms and mullets, feathered or otherwise. Then we start on the self-indulgence of the music and the fact that Rick Astley was allowed an entire career. Yes we had the Smiths but even Bob Dylan had a bad decade. On … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Brexit & trade Britain has enjoyed a mini living standards boom – so why did we vote for change? 29 January 2017 by Torsten Bell The living standards story of last year was record employment, a higher minimum wage and the strongest income growth for a decade. Britain’s never had it so moderately okay. What’s more inequality was either flat or falling – poorer households did better than most. But the democracy story was a Brexit vote for big change … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Labour market Jobs, the rise of Trump and the dangers of fatalism 23 January 2017 by Torsten Bell Even for those not based in the US, it’s been hard to avoid a long weekend of an inauguration, marches, facts and alternative facts. But today Donald Trump settles into “his first business day” (for those counting there’s at least a little over 1,000 of those to come), and jobs are top of his agenda. … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Productivity & industrial strategy· Inequality & poverty· Skills· Cities and regions Can a new generation of political leaders tackle Britain’s regional inequalities? 20 January 2017 by Stephen Clarke 2017 will see the UK begin its departure from the European Union. However, as the UK seeks to shed some politicians in Brussels, we will be getting some new ones at home. Greater Manchester, Liverpool, Tees, West Midlands, Bristol and Bath, and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough will all go to the polls to elect mayors and … Continued READ MORE
Household debt· Prices & consumption Consumer borrowing is up. But will it last, and should we be concerned? 12 January 2017 by Matthew Whittaker Consumer borrowing is increasing at its fastest rate in 11 years. As the chart below shows, outstanding debts (excluding mortgages and student loans) rose by 10.8 per cent in November 2016 – faster than any time since October 2005. This surge has inevitably prompted concerns that the UK is heading back down the path of … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Incomes· Inequality & poverty Inequality has reached a 30-year low. So should we still care? 10 January 2017 by Matthew Whittaker The joke goes that in the pub quizzes of the future, the answer to every question that starts “in what year…” will be 2016. But it’s likely that few will correctly identify that 2016 was also the year in which household income inequality fell to its lowest post-Thatcher level. Yet, thanks to a combination of … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Pay· Intergenerational Centre Is the gender pay gap on the brink of closure for young women today? 4 January 2017 by Laura Gardiner A common challenge to those – like us – who spend time voicing our concerns about the lot of today’s younger generation is a simple question: would you rather be born in 1960 or 1990? The argument runs that even millennials on modest incomes have smartphones that a boomer could only have dreamed of at … Continued READ MORE
Housing Resolving to fill the housing ‘aspiration gap’ 3 January 2017 by Matthew Whittaker New Year look-aheads are always a risky endeavour, and the level of uncertainty facing the UK economy at the start of 2017 means that the danger of looking foolish is even more elevated this time around. But we can be sure of one thing at least: our obsession with housing will show no sign of … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Intergenerational Centre Happy 70th, baby-boomer – but it’s the young who need the gifts 1 January 2017 by David Willetts This is the year the world turns 30. The world has been very young for a long time. The middle person in the global population has been in their twenties since 1950, when reliable records began, but the figure is on a steady upward trend and this year the world’s median age will probably go … Continued READ MORE
Labour market A-typical year? 30 December 2016 by Laura Gardiner Atypical is an apt word for describing 2016. From the celebrity death rate to decisions at the ballot box in the UK and America that are fundamentally reshaping politics, there’s a definite sense of disruption. And so it was in the labour market. Granted, 2016 wasn’t the year when atypical working patterns broke into the … Continued READ MORE
Housing Only half of families own their own home – how do the other half live? 27 December 2016 by Lindsay Judge and Adam Corlett While the received wisdom is that home ownership has fallen to 64 per cent over the last decade, is that a fair reflection of the real world? Do around two in three of us really own our home? Conventional rates of home ownership may offer a misleading picture as they only tell us the proportion … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Housing· Intergenerational Centre Mind the representation gap 22 December 2016 by Daniel Tomlinson We’ve heard a lot about fairness between the generations recently. Housing is normally the issue at hand. After all, home ownership is becoming an ever more distant dream for a growing number of millennials. As a result, twenty somethings are now spending £44,000 more on rent during their 20s than the baby boomers did. And … Continued READ MORE
Living standards 2016 deserves a better press on living standards – we’ll miss it when it’s gone 21 December 2016 by Torsten Bell 2016 is getting a bad press. The reasons are many and varied, crossing from the tragic to the frivolous. Syria, Berlin, Zika, Prince/Bowie, Trump, and (for some) Brexit – all get included in the charge sheet. But on living standards at least we may well come to look back at 2016 with fond nostalgia – … Continued READ MORE
