Wellbeing and mental health· Welfare Delivering the undeliverable Five principles to guide policy makers through reforming incapacity and disability benefits 6 March 2025 by Louise Murphy Context The Government is set to announce a Green Paper on health-related benefit reform £2bn health-related benefit cuts are baked into OBR forecasts and need to be specified The backdrop? Fast-rising spending on working-age health-related benefits; set to rise by £32bn between 2019-20 and 2029-30, from 1.3% to 2.2% of GD Five principles to guide … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Pay Unstable Pay New estimates of earnings volatility in the UK 4 March 2025 by Mike Brewer and Nye Cominetti and Stephen P. Jenkins This report uses a newly available dataset – payroll data held by HM Revenue and Customs on over 250,000 working-age people covering April 2014 to March 2019 – to look at monthly and weekly volatility in employee pre-tax earnings. It is one of a very few UK studies to look at high-frequency earnings volatility on … Continued READ MORE
Net zero The grass is greener on the net zero side What the Seventh Carbon Budget tells us about the net zero transition 26 February 2025 by Zachary Leather In today’s Seventh Carbon Budget, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) recommends that, by 2038-42, the UK should reduce its emissions by 87 per cent on 1990 levels. To reach this, we must enter a new era of climate policy in which changes to families’ spending patterns will play a crucial role, primarily by swapping their … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Inequality & poverty Turning the tide What it will take to reduce child poverty in the UK 26 February 2025 by Alex Clegg and Adam Corlett Ahead of the Government’s Child Poverty Strategy, which promises to bring about “an enduring reduction in child poverty”, this report looks at what might be needed to achieve this welcome goal in the face of significant headwinds. READ MORE
Unsung Britain· Living standards· Incomes Money, money, money The shifting mix of income sources for poorer households over the last 30 years 17 February 2025 by Lalitha Try This briefing note examines the components of income for low-to-middle income families. It considers how income from earnings and benefits have changed over the last 30 years, and how fixed costs including taxes and housing costs have reduced the income available to low-to-middle income families. READ MORE
Net zero· Living standards· Prices & consumption Sunny day savings Assessing Government support for solar panels 13 February 2025 by Zachary Leather The new Government’s plan to decarbonise the electricity system brings with it the lofty aim of tripling total solar capacity by the end of the decade. Although much of this will be driven by large-scale installations, ministers are also hoping for a “rooftop revolution” that could see millions more homes topped with solar panels by … Continued READ MORE
Housing Heritage and home Investigating ethnic inequalities in housing affordability 6 February 2025 by Camron Aref-Adib and Felicia Odamtten Britain, today, is a more plural country than ever before. But although recent polling has showed that the country has become more accepting over time, there is still ample evidence that significant ethnic inequalities exist. This note explores an ethnic inequality that has been largely under-researched to date: housing affordability. READ MORE
Macroeconomic policy The Macroeconomic Policy Outlook Q1 2025 30 January 2025 by Simon Pittaway and James Smith It has been a bleak winter for the Government’s hopes that the economy might turn a corner. Markets have been volatile, with the cost of government borrowing rising to its highest level since July 2008 with the pound falling sharply. And there are signs that growth has hit a brick wall, with GDP flat in … Continued READ MORE
Wealth & assets What’s up? Five key takeaways from new data on household wealth on the eve of the cost of living crisis 24 January 2025 by Molly Broome and Simon Pittaway Today’s release of long-awaited data from the Wealth and Assets Survey (WAS) allows us to finally shed more light on family finances during the Covid-19 pandemic. It shows that total household wealth continued to grow faster than the size of the economy – a trend dating back to the mid-1980s. Total household wealth reached a … Continued READ MORE
Social mobility Are universities worth it? A review of the evidence and policy options 20 January 2025 by David Willetts Young graduates earn £5,000 more annually than non-graduates, but that premium is lower than it was 10 years ago. The real earnings of young graduates have been broadly flat over the last decade, similar to earnings overall, whereas non-graduate earnings have been boosted by the minimum wage. But graduates individually do continue to enjoy rises … Continued READ MORE
Housing The Resolution Foundation Housing Outlook Q1 2025 15 January 2025 by Cara Pacitti Right to Buy has been a cornerstone of housing policy in England since its introduction in 1980, and has enabled over two million council tenants to purchase their homes at a substantial discount. The scheme has boosted home ownership and democratised wealth, especially for early buyers, but the long-term failure to replace the homes sold … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Prices & consumption Whose price is it anyway? Comparing the spending power of low-to-middle income families in Britain and abroad 13 January 2025 by Zaynah Janan and Simon Pittaway A long-standing finding is that British households on low-to-middle incomes are poorer than their counterparts in many advanced economies.[1] This result comes from comparing the incomes of this group to price levels in their respective countries. But these price measures typically reflect the spending of all families, not just those on low-to-middle incomes. In this … Continued READ MORE
Demographics Ageing in the fast and slow lane Examining geographic gaps in ageing 8 January 2025 by Charlie McCurdy Like most countries, the UK is ageing – over the past five decades its median age has risen from 34 to 41. This deep demographic trend has all sorts of implications for public policy, not least the need to find greater resources to provide care for a growing elderly population. What is less well appreciated is that this ageing is playing out differently in different parts of the country – both in terms of places’ age profile, but also in terms of the rate at which places are ageing. This report explores these trends and draws out some implications for local public services. READ MORE
Living standards Public pivot How a growing state will shape the living standards outlook for 2025 7 January 2025 by Alex Clegg and Adam Corlett and Louise Murphy and Simon Pittaway and Imogen Stone and Greg Thwaites 2025 will be a year with a bigger role for the state. Jeremy Hunt cut taxes in his last two Budgets and planned to pay for them with real-terms cuts to public spending in many areas. Rachel Reeves’s October Budget reversed these plans, pivoting to increasing spending on public services as a share of the … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Inequality & poverty Working poverty out The role of employment and progression in a child poverty strategy 6 January 2025 by Mike Brewer and Alex Clegg The Government is committed to releasing a child poverty strategy later this year. As part of this, Ministers will want to consider how best parental employment can help boost family incomes. But the mid-2020s present a different landscape for child poverty and parental employment from when the last Labour Government crafted its child poverty strategy. … Continued READ MORE
Labour Market Outlook· Labour market Labour Market Outlook Q4 2024 30 December 2024 by Nye Cominetti and Hannah Slaughter In this Labour Market Outlook, we examine how the Government should approach extending Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) to the lowest earners, and in particular what replacement rate – the proportion of their earnings that workers will get while off sick – to set for those workers who will be newly eligible. There is a clear … Continued READ MORE
Paid in full The perils facing pre-payment energy customers this winter 24 December 2024 by Jonathan Marshall As we move into the depths of winter, energy costs remain close to the top of the political agenda. But one vulnerable group – the 4 million UK households who pay for energy via pre-payment meters (PPMs) – remains overlooked in the national debate. High prices and the concentration of energy use in the winter … Continued READ MORE
Housing· Intergenerational Centre Housing hurdles The changing housing circumstances of young people in Britain 20 December 2024 by Iman Acharya and Molly Broome The recent uptick in home ownership rates and fall in the share of income spent on housing among 25-34-year-olds represent a remarkably positive development in the largely bleak landscape of youth home ownership. However, these developments do not capture the full picture of the housing market for young people. This note explores recent changes in … Continued READ MORE
Unsung Britain· Labour market A hard day’s night The labour market experience of low-to-middle income families 12 December 2024 by Nye Cominetti and Louise Murphy This report describes the labour market experiences of low-to-middle income families and how these have changed over the past quarter century. It explores those families’ employment, pay, experiences at work, and their feelings about changing jobs and progressing in work. READ MORE
Productivity & industrial strategy The art of strategy How to make a success of the Government’s new Industrial Strategy 9 December 2024 by Greg Thwaites and David Willetts This report critiques the Government’s Invest 2035 industrial strategy Green Paper. It calls for investing in better data and workforce skills, using public procurement as an instrument, and leaning in to the trade-offs when allocating public investment across regions and industries. READ MORE
Housing Housing Outlook Q4 2024 7 December 2024 by Alex Clegg and Lindsay Judge Welcome to our final Housing Outlook of 2024.[1] This quarter, we turn our attention to those families with children whose housing costs push them below the poverty line. We start by noting 1.1 million children in the UK today live in a household whose income would not fall below the poverty line if housing costs … Continued READ MORE
Aiming high? Assessing the Government’s new targets for its growth mission 5 December 2024 by Adam Corlett and Simon Pittaway and James Smith In government, priorities matter. And today the Government underscored its key priorities, announcing six ‘milestones’ for its six missions. When it comes to its mission for growth, there has been a welcome shift in focus towards living standards. Alongside growing GDP per capita, the Government has also committed to raising real household disposable income (RHDI) per person over the course of this Parliament. The inclusion of this measure of income should focus minds in Whitehall on ensuring growth that delivers higher income and, ultimately, better living standards for families. READ MORE
Trading blows How should Britain buy and sell in a turbulent world? 4 December 2024 by Emily Fry and Sophie Hale Recently the UK has faced tough times in trade, juggling twin shocks of Brexit and Covid. While service exports have stayed strong, goods trade has struggled. With a possible further disruption to goods trade around the corner in the form of universal Trump tariffs, this briefing asks what our economic experience of the first two … Continued READ MORE
Wealth & assets Inequality control Why wealth inequality has not increased while asset prices have soared and what that means for the future 28 November 2024 by Simon Pittaway The turbulent 2020s have had profound implications for household wealth in Britain: lockdowns pushed saving to unprecedented highs, asset prices surged and then tanked, and high inflation eroded the real value of wealth. This recent turbulence came on the back of decades of rising wealth. But, unlike elsewhere, relative wealth inequality in Britain did not soar during the era of rapidly rising wealth. This report discusses what lies behind this puzzling stability, which is key to understanding the reality of wealth inequality in Britain today and how it might evolve in future. READ MORE
Intergenerational Centre An intergenerational audit for the UK 2024 21 November 2024 by Molly Broome and Sophie Hale and Hannah Slaughter The sixth Intergenerational Audit for the UK, produced as part of the ESRC-funded Connecting Generations research programme, evaluates the economic importance of intergenerational exchanges including housing assistance, childcare and other unpaid care, and financial aid such as gifts and inheritances. READ MORE
