Living standards Squeezed Middle: a wake-up call 13 March 2013 by Sophia Parker This blog originally appeared on Public Finance In the UK, low and middle income families face flatlining or falling living standards. But the so-called ‘squeezed middle’ is under even greater pressure in the US. What can we learn? New analysis of the ‘squeezed middle’ in America and Britain, launched today by the Resolution Foundation, raises some important pointers … Continued READ MORE
Living standards Transatlantic lessons for middle Britain 13 March 2013 by Sophia Parker This blog originally appeared on Bright Blue Today sees the launch of ‘The Squeezed Middle: the pressure on ordinary workers in America and Britain’ – a collection of essays from America’s leading thinkers in the field of living standards to understand what lessons, if any, we might draw from the US experience. You may well wonder what we … Continued READ MORE
Labour market The road to a jobs recovery is longer than it seems 12 March 2013 by James Plunkett This post originally appeared on the Huffington Post For anyone hoping to sift a nugget of gold from recent economic data, employment stats have been the place to look. In the past year, the number of people working in the UK has risen faster than at any time since 1989, a remarkable performance from an economy … Continued READ MORE
Labour market Keeping it private 6 March 2013 by Matthew Whittaker Despite the sluggish economic recovery, employment figures continue to surprise on the upside. With the public sector rapidly being cut back, all of this employment growth is of course coming from the private sector. But what does the picture look like across the different parts of the UK? The green bars in the chart below show … Continued READ MORE
Labour market Low Pay Is Fast Becoming a Defining Challenge of Our Age 28 February 2013 by James Plunkett This post originally appeared on the Huffington Post You can tell a lot about a downturn by the image that comes to define it. From queues outside job centres in the 1970s and early 1980s to the poll tax riots that preceded the early 1990s recession, the pictures that stick in the mind have a habit … 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
Living standards The end of pledge-card politics? 22 February 2013 by Gavin Kelly This post originally appeared on Gavin’s New Statesman blog The next election will see a battered electorate in need of economic and social respite confronted by a political elite woefully lacking in resources and public trust. Never in recent times will so much be asked from leaders who have so little to respond with. The result … Continued READ MORE
Living standards Never had it so squeezed 13 February 2013 by Matthew Whittaker This post orginally appeared on Public Finance Even in the boom years, a large proportion of the population never shared the proceeds of growth. That’s even less likely today as austerity really hits home Mired as we are in a fifth year of economic crisis and austerity, it’s easy to forget that not long ago we’d … Continued READ MORE
Economy and public finances The coalition’s welfare cuts mean a dramatic rise in council tax for the poorest 31 January 2013 by Matthew Pennycook This article originally appeared on the New Statesman The decision to reduce the budget for council tax support by 10 per cent means low-income households face a tax increase of up to £600. Accustomed to the inflated claims of successive governments, readers might be forgiven for rolling their eyes at the phrase “radical welfare reform”. Yet … Continued READ MORE
Welfare The wrong reform – at the worst possible time 30 January 2013 by Gavin Kelly Britain’s poorest households – already struggling to cope with falling wages, rising living costs, and a series of cuts to tax credits and benefits – are about to receive another blow. And very few of them know it’s coming. Within weeks they will receive an unexpected council tax bill in the post. Many will assume … Continued READ MORE
Economy and public finances Could the Tories’ plan for re-election in 2015 cost just 10p? 28 January 2013 by Gavin Kelly Might something new be stirring on the right of politics in relation to the plight of Britain’s low paid? Just to pose the question is to invite ridicule from many on the left: how could the minimum-wage opposing, tax-credit cutting, VAT-hiking, benefit-squeezing Conservative party have anything to say to those at the sharp end of … Continued READ MORE
Welfare The coalition and families with children – a taxing issue? 21 January 2013 by Gavin Kelly This blog originally appeared on the New Statesman Often it takes the deadline of an impending announcement to really expose underlying tensions about the future direction of policy. The coalition’s recent sorry saga on childcare policy – breathless briefings about a major expansion in tax-relief meant to herald the coalition’s renewed vitality, followed by an awkward … Continued READ MORE
Welfare The Childcare Announcement That Never Was 18 January 2013 by James Plunkett This blog originally appeared on the Huffington Post Uncertainty continues to cloud the government’s plans on childcare. Latest rumours suggest they may now delay any big announcement until after the budget. If government sources are to be believed, the most recent plans have been scuppered by a tag team of HMT officials and senior Lib Dems. The Treasury is … Continued READ MORE
Welfare The Coalition’s Childcare Policy Moves in Mysterious Ways 8 January 2013 by James Plunkett This post orginally appeared on The Huffingtom Post blog There may have been few details in Monday’s renewal of Coalition vows but one key policy continues to invite debate: the government’s plans for childcare. Much remains uncertain but it does now seem clear that the government hopes to use tax relief as its key way of … Continued READ MORE
Welfare Childcare tax breaks risk helping the rich the most 8 January 2013 by Vidhya Alakeson This post originally appeared on The Staggers blog At present, there are almost no voucher recipients among the poorest 40 per cent of households. In the week that parents earning over £50,000 saw their child benefit cut, the speculation is that the government intends to introduce tax relief for childcare, possibly making those who were worse off from … Continued READ MORE
Economy and public finances An Autumn Statement for strivers? 5 December 2012 by Matthew Whittaker Today’s fiscally neutral Autumn Statement was billed as one for strivers. We have already shown that around 60 per cent of the cut associated with the 1 per cent uprating of most working-age benefits and tax credits will actually fall on working households. But of course, the additional £235 increase in the personal tax allowance … Continued READ MORE
Economy and public finances From striver alert to future cuts: five things to expect from the Autumn Statement 4 December 2012 by Gavin Kelly This post originally appeared on Gavin’s New Statesman blog In the Autumn Statement there will be a blizzard of facts, figures, assertions and counter-assertions. There have been a few helpful pointers on what lto ook out for (try this and this), and I’ve already given my tuppence worth on what may happen to the faltering fiscal rules. But here are a … Continued READ MORE
Economy and public finances George Osborne cannot possibly know how long austerity will last 2 December 2012 by Gavin Kelly This post originally appeared on Gavin’s New Statesman blog Next week George Osborne will hold forth on the size of the underlying deficit and reveal whether austerity will now extend until at least 2018. When he does, he won’t know what he’s talking about – and he’ll be in good company. Neither will Ed Balls when … Continued READ MORE
Welfare On Childcare, Tax Breaks for Nannies Can’t Be the Answer 1 December 2012 by James Plunkett This post originally appeared on the Huffington Post Few political debates have made more progress in 2012 than that around childcare. In the past 12 months, all threemajor parties have come to see reform as an economic and political necessity. Although hard policy proposals are yet to emerge, it’s now clear that one yardstick for 2015 will be the … Continued READ MORE
Economy and public finances How seven years of cuts will transform the political landscape 29 November 2012 by Gavin Kelly When it comes to big political set pieces, like yesterday’s Autumn Statement, the predictable somehow still manages to surprise. Everyone knew it would be bad; and we all knew it would raise big challenges for all three parties. Yet today, everyone is caught off-guard.In part, it’s because the unprecedented duration of the cuts — until … 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 In-work poverty: the decline of the male breadwinner 26 November 2012 by Matthew Whittaker Today’s important JRF report on poverty and social exclusion highlights the changing nature of poverty in recent years, finding that more than half of those children and working‑age adults who are reported to be in poverty live in a working household. This trend pre-dates the recession and, as our work has shown, is particularly concentrated among families in … Continued READ MORE
Labour market The squeeze on earnings continues 22 November 2012 by Alex Hurrell The ONS 2012 Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings release that came out this morning reveals that median real wages have fallen between 2010-11 and 2011-12. Median gross annual earnings for full-time employees were £26,500 for the tax year ending 5 April 2012, an increase of 1.4 percent from the previous year. But over the … 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
Labour market Clegg’s Score-draw on Women’s Work 13 November 2012 by James Plunkett This post originally appeared on the Huffington Post The coalition recognised long ago it has a major problem with women. This morning’s speech from the deputy prime pinister was one of the first major attempts to address this challenge through policy. The speech, drawing heavily on the Resolution Foundation report The Missing Million, looked at how to raise female employment through … Continued READ MORE
