Labour market Dragging us all down 21 September 2012 by Matthew Whittaker This post originally appeared on Public Finance Unemployment is one of a number of factors keeping a lid on pay levels in both the public and private sectors With so little to cheer in the British economy in recent years, the steady fall in unemployment since the turn of the year has been seized on as … 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
Welfare Why it’s unlikely benefits increases will be linked to earnings 19 September 2012 by Gavin Kelly Gloomy projections all round. Following another Newsnight scoop, there must be debate in Westminster about whether the coalition are going to change their approach to uprating benefits – increasing them annually in line with inflation – for people of a working age. Coalition splits have already been predicted and then resolved before the pre-Autumn statement … 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
Living standards Casting ahead to the 2015 election, no party leader likes what he sees 9 September 2012 by Gavin Kelly As the Westminster tempo cranks up, just as the marvel of the Olympic and Paralympic summer winds down, the main party leaders will be looking for ways of securing immediate momentum. Following his bumpy reshuffle David Cameron needs to demonstrate to an increasingly sceptical public that he hasn’t become the prisoner of a divided party and a fractious coalition. … Continued READ MORE
Labour market Working Families Risk Being Shut Out By Montague Row 23 August 2012 by Vidhya Alakeson This post originally appeared on The Spectator Today’s publication of the Montague Review into institutional investment in build to let addresses an important gap in our housing market. Large numbers of people, and a growing number of families, who would have bought homes in the past are now shut out of ownership for the medium to … Continued READ MORE
Living standards US election is a wake-up call for alarm clock Britain 8 August 2012 by Gavin Kelly It’s the Middle Class, Stupid!, the new zeitgeist book by grizzled Clinton-era advisers Stan Greenberg and James “Ragin’ Cajun” Carville isn’t your standard fare by former political insiders. It’s less a retrospective and more an argument about reversing the declining fortunes of middle America: not only should this be the defining issue of this year’s presidential election … Continued READ MORE
Labour market Young people’s wages: the numbers look scary… because they are scary 2 August 2012 by Gavin Kelly This post originally appeared on Gavin’s New Statesman blog The economic plight of young people has been one of the recurring themes of recent years – most importantly the rise of youth unemployment which has topped one million and the steep rise of long-term youth unemployment. Yet for all the debate about the labour market position of … Continued READ MORE
Labour market We’re solving the pay gap – the wrong way 30 July 2012 by Gavin Kelly This post originally appeared on Gavin’s New Statesman blog One of the longest-running campaigns in modern British politics is that for equal pay. As many have pointed out it’s over 40 years since the Equal Pay Act yet the gender gap still persists. The good news is progress – even if it is all too slow – … Continued READ MORE
Living standards Coalition politics? It’s the art of the impossible 16 July 2012 by Gavin Kelly Last week’s failure on Lords reform has generated much frothy end-of-term speculation that this could be the issue that triggers the eventual downfall of the coalition. Which doesn’t tell you much, apart from the fact that many in Westminster clearly need a holiday. As Jackie Ashley pointed out in the Guardian on Sunday, neither David Cameron nor Nick Clegg … 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 Up-skilling the middle 4 July 2012 by Anna Vignoles Successive governments have certainly placed skills policy at the heart of strategies to raise living standards and tackle low pay. Yet now there are growing doubts about whether upskilling workers will be enough to bring about genuine improvements in the living conditions of people currently on low to middle incomes (LMIs). In a new paper … 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
Economy and public finances Clegg’s new tone on the economy 23 May 2012 by Gavin Kelly This post originally appeared on Gavin’s New Statesman blogIt’s not every day you open the paper to read about a cabinet minister – one who isn’t the Chancellor – holding forth about the ‘instruction’ that has been given to the Treasury on a key aspect of economic policy. Nor we should we suppose that Nick … Continued READ MORE
Welfare Can Deregulation Fix Britain’s Childcare Challenge 23 May 2012 by Vidhya Alakeson This blog originally appeared on the Huffington PostAt the start of this week Conservative MP, Elizabeth Truss, published her proposals for reducing the high costs of childcare in Britain. At the heart of her proposals is a drive to reduce regulation on the childcare industry. Truss has two main ideas: a relaxation of ratios so that a single … Continued READ MORE
Housing Chill out about the debt bubble? Not yet. 18 May 2012 by Gavin Kelly This post originally appeared on Gavin’s New Statesman blog What role did high levels of household debt play in generating the crash and what do they mean for our economy over the next few years? Well-worn questions, you might think. And no shortage of people have asserted answers. Following 2008, a whole new crunch-lit genre of … Continued READ MORE
Labour market Non-compliance with the National Minimum Wage 17 May 2012 This guest post is by Sir Robin Wales, Mayor of Newham The introduction of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) is widely regarded as one of the most impactful policies of recent decades. Its success as a policy is illustrated by the fact that the need for a minimum wage is rarely questioned any more, even … Continued READ MORE
Housing Debt and inequality conundrums 15 May 2012 by James Plunkett This post originally appeared on the OECD blog How did inequality and household debt interact in the run up to the 2008/09 financial crisis? Today, a new report byNIESR for the Resolution Foundation provides new evidence on that question for the UK. The new analysis confirms the severity of the borrowing situation of low income households in Britain before … Continued READ MORE
Labour market Living wage – coming to a city near you 10 May 2012 by Gavin Kelly This post originally appeared on Gavin’s New Statesman blog The last time a letter left on a desk caused such a stir it involved an exchange between two senior politicians about the future of the country’s finances. This time the note was from a group of Whitehall cleaners to Iain Duncan Smith asking him to make … Continued READ MORE
Living standards Too fast, too slow – how the passing of time is shaping politics for Cameron and Miliband 8 May 2012 by Gavin Kelly This post originally appeared on Gavin’s New Statesman blog Two years into the life of the coalition and all the sudden the passing of time seems like Ed Miliband’s best friend and David Cameron’s worst foe. For a government that has lost its footing, facing an opposition learning how to benefit from the stumbling and fumbling, the … Continued READ MORE
Welfare A tax on aspiration? 2 May 2012 by Gavin Kelly This post originally appeared on Gavin’s New Statesman blog Governments, like individuals, often like to believe their varying instincts and aspirations all fit comfortably together even when they don’t. They prefer to try to keep these tensions under wraps and sometimes don’t even like to admit them in private to themselves. And the coalition is … Continued READ MORE
Labour market Minimum wage is the least carers deserve 19 April 2012 by Gavin Kelly Gavin Kelly, The GuardianA good thing about the national minimum wage, you might think, is that even if it’s set at a pretty modest level you can at least be sure that everyone will receive it. Sure, there will be the odd rogue employer who needs to be tackled for non-compliance. But it’s not like there … Continued READ MORE
Labour market More than a minimum? 17 April 2012 by Gavin Kelly This post first appeared on Gavin Kelly’s New Statesman blog. Once in a while a policy moves from being partisan and divisive to representing the mainstream consensus in a very short period of time. That is, or at least was, the case with the national minimum wage (NMW). It wasn’t so long ago it was denigrated … Continued READ MORE
Living standards Bad Univeralism 16 April 2012 by Gavin Kelly Gavin Kelly, Prospect Universal welfare benefits, available to all regardless of income, have long animated the politics of the welfare state. Prime Ministers from Atlee to Cameron have grappled with the universal principle, whereby certain benefits are given to all citizens, even the rich. Universalism goes against the notion that benefits should always target the … Continued READ MORE
