Analysis of tax changes
What's happening to the personal allowance & tax credits in 2012 Find out more
Blog
Waving goodbye to two decades
25 January 2012 | Gavin Kelly
This post originally appeared on Gavin's New Statesman blog
Another week, another terrible set of GDP figures, an IMF downgrade of the UK's growth prospects, and a new report showing the squeeze on living standards is set to run and run. The public, along with our politicians, is probably starting to grow immune to some of the shocking headlines about how long it will be before their incomes recover. All attempts at peering into our economic future do, of course, need to be taken with a handful of salt. And if long range economic forecasting is a mug's game, then seeking false precision about the resulting political consequences is truly the pursuit of fools.
Yet for all the uncertainty we can discern the broad contours of different possible paths for living standards over the rest of the decade. None are attractive -- though some are uglier than others. All are likely to challenge the standard assumptions upon which recent politics have been based.
Us in the News
Middle-income Britain is in state of emergency, says Nick Clegg
Patrick Wintour, The Guardian
The 22-year wait to buy a first home
Mark Bridge, The Times
The plight of those in the middle
BBC Newsnight (4m 45s)
Latest Video
Squeezed Britain
23 January 2012
Matthew Whittaker discusses our annual audit of low to middle income households
Events
Keynote speech by Nick Clegg
26th January 2012
Squeezed Britain: the state of low to middle income households today
23rd January 2012
Latest Publications
The Essential Guide to Squeezed Britain
Matthew Whittaker
Squeezed Britain reveals what life is really like for families who are in work but on a low to middle income. Facing a new tax credits squeeze on top of a continued fall in real wages and a growing chance of a lifetime in renting, this group's household finances are increasingly precarious.
