Low pay· Pay· Wealth & assets· Political parties and elections Question Time’s £80K man was wrong about the top 5%. But the super-rich are on another planet Those in his earning bracket have far more in common with workers on average pay than they do with the 1% 28 November 2019 by Torsten Bell f you live in Bolton and earn more than £80,000, you’re rich compared with your neighbours. Really rich. The average pay for all workers is just £22,000 and one in four earns less than £15,000. And yes, you’re still rich among the country as a whole: only 5% of earners make more than £80,000 – … Continued READ MORE
Social care· Living standards· Inequality & poverty· Welfare The child poverty crisis needs pushing up the agenda in Britain’s ‘Brexit’ election None of the main party manifestos will end child poverty 27 November 2019 by Laura Gardiner Both the main parties have learnt lessons from the 2017 election. The Conservatives have learnt not to scare the horses with big new policies. Their 2019 manifesto is very much a ‘safety-first’ document. Labour learnt that they have a problem with pensioners – 70-year olds are twice as likely to vote Tory as Labour – … Continued READ MORE
We need to think bigger when it comes to reforms to our jobs market 18 November 2019 by Daniel Tomlinson The Conservatives are spending this election campaign celebrating record employment. The Labour party is spending it deriding the UK’s lousy pay performance, and high levels of insecure work. These contrasting pictures are both true: we have a very tight labour market, but the issue of job quality remains. Our flexible labour market has enabled the … Continued READ MORE
Incomes· Labour market· Low pay· Pay Feel poor, work more – the real reason behind Britain’s record employment 13 November 2019 by Torsten Bell Why are three million more of us working today than were back in 2008? How has our employment rate reached 76 per cent, when full employment before the crisis meant 73 per cent of us working? These are employment levels no-one thought possible a decade ago. There is almost no bigger change to our economy … Continued READ MORE
A slowing economy is starting to feed through into the labour market 12 November 2019 by Hannah Slaughter We’re starting to see signs that the slowing economy may now be feeding through to the labour market. Even as GDP growth has faltered in recent months, and with Brexit uncertainty ramped up and productivity stagnant, the labour market had remained strong. The employment rate had reached a record high, with pay growth improving. And … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Pay Election 2019: What jobs do UK workers actually do? 12 November 2019 by Laura Gardiner The UK is gearing up for another election, which means politicians of all parties fighting for the votes of what they call ‘ordinary’ or ‘hard-working’ people. There are record numbers of people in work in the UK. So, what jobs do we do in Britain, how have they changed in recent years, and what might … Continued READ MORE
Labour Market Outlook· Low pay· Pay Never had it so good? Almost back to peak pay 7 November 2019 by Nye Cominetti The last time pay peaked was in August 2007. Average weekly pay was £513, measured in 2019 prices. Over a decade later, pay is finally set to go higher. In August 2019, the latest month for which we have our most timely earnings data, average weekly pay was £511. With real pay growth at a … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Low pay· Living Wage The evidence backing a higher minimum wage is growing 4 November 2019 by Nye Cominetti You wait for a minimum wage report and then three come along at once. This morning the Treasury published Arin Dube’s keenly awaited review of minimum wage policy in the UK. Dube backs the Chancellor’s ambitions to raise the rate to two-thirds of median hourly pay, but offers useful honesty about the risks involved, as … Continued READ MORE
Demographics· Political parties and elections The middle aged, not the middle class, are the new swing voters 2 November 2019 by Torsten Bell An election is coming. You may have noticed. The early phase of any campaign is the contest about what the election will actually be about – where the battle lines will lie. You want it to be all about Brexit if you’re gunning for the Conservatives or Liberal Democrats, and everything but Brexit if you’re … Continued READ MORE
Low pay· Inequality & poverty· Pay A good year for pay? Five things we learned from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2019 29 October 2019 by Nye Cominetti This morning the ONS published the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) for 2019 – the most detailed data on employee pay available, telling us about high and low pay, the gender pay gap, and more besides. As a think-tank focusing on raising living standards, this is pretty crucial data for us, and for … Continued READ MORE
Sinner or saint? The flaws of the UK labour market won’t solve themselves 29 October 2019 by Gavin Kelly The UK labour market is lauded for reaching record levels of employment at the same time as it is lacerated for the insecurities that are said to be its central feature. Two things can, however, be true at once: an economy can be job-rich at the same time as too many of its workers are … Continued READ MORE
Labour market The flaws of the UK labour market won’t solve themselves Time to learn from other Anglo-Saxon economies 29 October 2019 Sinner or saint? The UK labour market is lauded for reaching record levels of employment at the same time as it is lacerated for the insecurities that are said to be its central feature. Two things can, however, be true at once: an economy can be job-rich at the same time as too many of … Continued READ MORE
Intergenerational Centre What is generational fairness? David Runciman speech on intergenerational fairness and political representation 21 October 2019 by Professor David Runciman This article summarises a speech by Professor David Runciman at a recent Intergenerational Centre event exploring what the concept of generational fairness means for our politics, economics and society. You can watch the full event on our event page. This article does not necessarily reflect the views of the Resolution Foundation. In the coming months … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Pay Has the labour market reached a turning point? 15 October 2019 by Nye Cominetti On headline measures the labour market remains healthy. Conditions are tight and this continues to feed into decent real pay growth – 2.0 per cent in the three months to August 2019, not far off the levels we came to expect before the recession. But alongside positive headlines are signs that the labour market is … Continued READ MORE
Skills Are higher-level apprenticeships going to better-off apprentices? What the new Department of Education statistics tell us 12 October 2019 by Kathleen Henehan This morning the Department for Education (DfE) published figures on the number of apprenticeships that were started in July 2019 – the final month of the 2018/19 academic year. And although the numbers are still provisional, they provide us with a pretty clear picture of how things shaped up for the apprenticeships sector. The big … Continued READ MORE
Low pay· Pay A rare political consensus has broken out over a higher minimum wage – but achieving it is far from straightforward 1 October 2019 by Torsten Bell The politics of the minimum wage don’t exactly fit our lazy stereotypes. Back in the pre-crisis days of supposed consensus, debates raged about whether the policy was right or wrong. Today, when political divides are huge, everyone is falling over themselves to agree that a higher minimum wage is the way to go. The Chancellor … Continued READ MORE
Fiscal policy· Macroeconomic policy The Treasury and Bank of England should prepare for a three-pronged economic shock from ‘no deal’ 1 October 2019 by Jack Leslie It’s a well-worn trope that no one knows what the economic impact of a no deal Brexit would be. And for good reason. The scale of disruption at the border, in supply chains and in the wider economy, is impossible to predict with any accuracy. Much would depend on the timing and the success of … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Pay The labour market is delivering on jobs and pay – it is vital for living standards that we keep it that way 10 September 2019 by Nye Cominetti A tight labour market is finally delivering decent pay growth. In the three months to July 2019, average weekly regular pay (i.e. excluding bonuses) grew by 1.9 per cent on the previous year (slightly down on the previous month). Given that average real pay grew by 2.1 per cent in the eight years prior to … Continued READ MORE
Macroeconomic policy Is the UK recession ready? 9 September 2019 by Torsten Bell The good news is we’ve now managed a recession free decade since the financial crisis. The bad news is that history teaches us this is quite unusual – booms and bust haven’t been abolished. This matters – downturns have very high costs, even when they’re not of the global financial crisis earth-shattering sort. On average … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Prices & consumption· Brexit & trade· Tax After Brexit the UK could cut VAT on energy – but should it? 2 September 2019 by Adam Corlett During the EU referendum, one of Vote Leave’s promises was that “fuel bills will be lower for everyone”. Specifically, Boris Johnson and others argued that: “In 1993, VAT on household energy bills was imposed. This makes gas and electricity much more expensive. EU rules mean we cannot take VAT off those bills. The least wealthy … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Skills What do the latest apprenticeship figures tell us? 2 September 2019 by Kathleen Henehan and Jubair Ahmed This August, as always, brought a host of headlines on academic results: from A level triumphs to parents’ confusion with the new(ish) GCSE marking system. Rather less attention, as always, was paid to students who pursued qualifications and pathways outside the traditional GCSE-to-A level-to-university route. For instance, apprenticeships, where young people can – in theory … Continued READ MORE
Pay How to get a pay rise 19 August 2019 by Nye Cominetti How do you get a pay rise? You could try to wrangle more out of your employer with canny negotiating tactics. That may help. But it’s not how the majority of us see our pay rise – and occasionally fall – over time. In practice, other factors are likely to be more important. Some of … Continued READ MORE
Economic growth Is there any economics behind Johnson’s ‘perk up and carry on’ strategy? 15 August 2019 by Torsten Bell It’s time to get with the perk… I mean programme. Boris Johnson’s government might not even have a Budget under its belt, but its economic strategy is taking shape. It’s time to abolish the gloomsters. And the doomsters. As he said on entering Downing Street, “after three years of unfounded self-doubt it is time to … Continued READ MORE
Low pay· Labour market· Pay Is the minimum wage pushing people into self-employment? 29 July 2019 by Nye Cominetti Two big changes in the labour market over the past two decades have been the rise in self-employment and the introduction and uprating of the minimum wage. Is there a connection between these trends? Legally, of course, there is no connection – the minimum wage applies to employees only. But economically, we would expect one. … Continued READ MORE
Leading Britain through Brexit: Five lessons for Boris Johnson 24 July 2019 by Torsten Bell When the history books of our era are written they will say that Britain had a huge financial crisis, then it left the EU. In those books Boris Johnson’s legacy as Prime Minister will be Brexit – and the politics and economics of Brexit are hard. Hard substantively, because they involve unravelling 40 years of … Continued READ MORE
