Five challenges· Housing Building Blocks Can the Government hit its housing targets? Thursday 12 September 2024 The new Government has set an ambitious target of delivering 1.5 million new homes over a five-year period – at a rate that hasn’t been achieved since the 1960s – and has put planning reform at the heart of its agenda. But successive governments have aimed high, but delivered low, when it comes to housebuilding. … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Housing Building pressure? Rising rents, and what to expect in the future Monday 8 April 2024 The combination of high house prices and stagnating incomes over recent decades, coupled with the decline of social housing, mean that millions more of us are private renters. And they are renting for longer too. Private rents have risen swiftly in the wake of the pandemic. What happens next matters hugely for millions of families, … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030· Labour market· Cities and regions· Housing Making Greater Manchester great again What is GM’s plausible path to greater prosperity? Tuesday 19 September 2023 This event was held in Manchester. Greater Manchester has long been centre-stage in visions of a more geographically equal country – from the Northern Powerhouse to levelling up. But the rhetoric has outpaced the reality: productivity and wages across the city region remain 10 and 4 per cent below the national average. What it would … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030· Labour market· Cities and regions· Housing Building momentum in Birmingham and beyond What is Birmingham urban area’s plausible path to greater prosperity? Thursday 14 September 2023 This event was in Birmingham. The West Midlands has played a pivotal role in British history as a manufacturing hub, driving innovation and economic growth which led to dramatic improvements in people’s living standards. But its city region has struggled to maintain this role over recent decades, and productivity is now 11 per cent below … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030· Living standards· Labour market· Inequality & poverty· Housing Shared prosperity What would it take to see a return to rising living standards for all? Tuesday 4 July 2023 Britain is stagnating. Productivity growth is flatlining, workers today are earning the same wages as their predecessors in 2007, and living standards growth had slowed to a crawl even before today’s cost of living crisis. So we need a clear strategy for returning to rising, and widely shared, prosperity. Against that backdrop, it is important … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Labour market· Wealth & assets· Housing· Intergenerational Centre Mortgaged millennials to bitterly cold boomers Assessing the cost of living crisis across generations Monday 14 November 2022 Rising energy bills are with us and rising mortgage bills are on the way. While wages are falling far behind inflation, debates rage about whether benefits or the state pension should do the same. Older workers have not returned to the labour market post-Covid, while younger workers may suffer most from the unemployment rise the … Continued READ MORE
Wealth & assets· Housing· Tax The Great British wealth windfall Is now the time to reform property taxation? Thursday 9 December 2021 House prices across the UK have rocketed over recent decades, and have continued to surge even when the rest of the economy collapsed during the Covid crisis. This has delivered a huge wealth windfall, that far from being shared equally has gone to existing asset owners. This windfall has also largely slipped past the tax … Continued READ MORE
Housing Hope to buy? Assessing trends in home ownership Thursday 2 December 2021 Purchasing a house has traditionally been seen as one of the key milestones in adulthood, providing not just a home but financial security for many. But with youth home ownership having declined substantially over the past three decades, this milestone is increasingly one many may not reach. How have trends in youth home ownership changed … Continued READ MORE
Covid-19· Housing Resolving rents Tackling Britain’s rent arrears crisis Tuesday 16 February 2021 Britain’s private renters have been one of the groups hit hardest by job losses and furloughing during the coronavirus crisis. A temporary eviction ban has prevented that feeding through into people losing their homes mid-pandemic, but has seen rent arrears mount. This spells trouble for both tenants and landlords in the months ahead. As the … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Housing Round the houses Will the new decade have any answers to the old question of Britain’s housing crisis? Thursday 30 January 2020 To mark the first edition of its new quarterly housing report, the Resolution Foundation will present new research on a decade of changes in housing, and the consequences for living standards today. An expert panel will join to discuss the issues. READ MORE
Housing· Intergenerational Centre Moving on up Has Britain’s housing crisis made us a less mobile nation? Thursday 6 June 2019 We presented research on the impact of recent housing trends on young people’s pay and job prospects. A panel of experts, including Liz Truss, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, then discussed the issues raised from the research. READ MORE
Housing Old answers to new questions? The future of social housing in the UK Monday 8 April 2019 Post-war governments invested heavily in social housing. But it then fell spectacularly out of favour, with the introduction of Right-to-Buy in 1980 sparking a decline in social housing stock. Almost 40 years on, attitudes toward social housing appear to be changing again. In 2017, Theresa May earmarked £2 billion of new money for social rented … Continued READ MORE
Housing Lender of last resort? The Bank of Mum and Dad and Britain’s millennial housing crisis Tuesday 4 December 2018 High house prices and weak wage growth have led to a stark fall in home ownership rates among young people since the early 2000s, with a typical first-time buyer needing 18 years to save for a deposit, up from 3 years in the mid-90s. Increasingly stepping into this gap has been the Bank of Mum … Continued READ MORE
Housing· Intergenerational Centre Home improvements: The role of housing policy in renewing the intergenerational contract Tuesday 17 April 2018 The last decade has seen housing at last work its way to the top of the political agenda. From much lower home ownership and higher housing costs for younger generations, to the sharp increase in families living in less secure rented accommodation, there is now a cross party consensus that Britain faces some serious questions … Continued READ MORE
Monetary policy· Housing Causes and Consequences: The role of household debt in 21st Century Britain Monday 12 February 2018 The growth in household debt has outpaced growth in household incomes in recent years, putting questions about the causes and consequences of higher debt back in the spotlight. Should we worry that higher debt means that another credit crisis could be brewing? Or is growing household debt instead an indicator of rising consumer confidence? What … Continued READ MORE
Housing· Intergenerational Centre Home affront: the outlook for housing for young people across Britain Wednesday 20 September 2017 In recent decades, housing has gone from being a driver of falling wealth inequality to playing a central role in Britain’s living standards crisis. Across income groups and the generations we see widespread concern about the housing prospects of younger generations. From the cost of housing to its size, quality and proximity to work, how … Continued READ MORE
Housing· Intergenerational Centre The wealth of our nation Who owns what in 21st century Britain Tuesday 20 June 2017 Launch of major work programme on wealth across Britain for the Intergenerational Commission The wealth we accumulate, spend and pass on is too often the forgotten side of big national debates on inequality and living standards, where questions of day to day income dominate. A full lifetime view of our living standards needs to put … Continued READ MORE
Housing A family affair: The transfer of wealth across generations Tuesday 30 May 2017 From the establishment of primogeniture to the Bank of Mum & Dad the transfer of wealth across generations is both an ancient and very modern issue in Britain. With wealth increasingly concentrated among older generations, the issue of wealth transfers is rising up the political agenda. The desire for families to pass wealth onto the … Continued READ MORE
Housing Can we fix it? Solving Britain’s housing crisis Tuesday 26 April 2016 Britain’s housing crisis has been decades in the making, and is finally rising up the political agenda. But is this crisis really just confined to London and the South East, or is it spreading across Britain and other European countries? Which groups are on the receiving end of a lack of affordable housing? And how … Continued READ MORE
Housing The home stretch – coping with high housing costs Monday 8 December 2014 Buying or renting a home in many parts of the country is a financial challenge for families on modest incomes. How then do these families continue to live in some of the most expensive parts of the country? What coping strategies can make the seemingly unaffordable financially possible, at what personal cost to the families … Continued READ MORE
Housing Living in the House of Debt Wednesday 3 September 2014 Very high levels of household debt have been a stubbornly persistent feature of many developed economies – including those of the UK and the US – before, during and since the financial crisis. The Resolution Foundation has led UK analysis of how this debt may carry severe consequences for many families and for the wider … Continued READ MORE
Housing Dealing with debt – The prospect of rising interest rates and the UK’s household debt problem Tuesday 3 June 2014 While many have benefited from years of rock-bottom interest rates the burden of household debt has not greatly declined since the financial crisis and now the era of ultra-cheap borrowing is likely to be drawing to a close. A large swathe of households remains highly exposed to the effects of rising interest rates. Yet while … Continued READ MORE
Housing Rachel Reeves MP – A better deal for savers: helping ordinary workers secure decent living standards in retirement Thursday 29 May 2014 The struggle to set aside savings and the increasing difficulty that many working people find in securing a decent income at retirement is one of the less noticed but potentially most far-reaching issues in the living standards debate. In her first major speech on pensions policy since becoming Shadow Secretary of State for Work and … Continued READ MORE
Housing Sharing the spoils: bringing home ownership into reach for low to middle income households Wednesday 20 November 2013 Low to middle income households are increasingly shut out of traditional home ownership, and more and more families with children are living in the private rental sector. We know, however, that home ownership overwhelmingly remains most people’s preferred tenure and the lack of asset accumulation amongst long term renters is a concern. This event launched … Continued READ MORE
Housing Building homes for generation rent – can institutional investment meet the challenge? Thursday 10 October 2013 Low to middle income families are increasingly shut out of home ownership and not qualifying for social housing. This means that there is a need to focus specifically on increasing the supply of market rent property, but any new supply must be fit for purpose. Families with children now account for a third of the 3.8 million households … Continued READ MORE