America’s working women

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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

Casting ahead to the 2015 election, no party leader likes what he sees

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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

US election is a wake-up call for alarm clock Britain

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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

Coalition politics? It’s the art of the impossible

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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

Back to work? Not if you’re an older carer

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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

Up-skilling the middle

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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

Can Deregulation Fix Britain’s Childcare Challenge

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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

Chill out about the debt bubble? Not yet.

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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

Non-compliance with the National Minimum Wage

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

Debt and inequality conundrums

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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

Living wage – coming to a city near you

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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

Too fast, too slow – how the passing of time is shaping politics for Cameron and Miliband

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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

A tax on aspiration?

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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

Minimum wage is the least carers deserve

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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

More than a minimum?

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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

Bad Univeralism

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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

Making sense of the budget

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This post originally appeared on Gavin’s New Statesman blog “In this country we have to look upon budget promises as made of the same stuff as lover’s oaths.”  So said Lord Salisbury, three times Conservative PM, and his words are perhaps more apt than ever given that all the love drained out of the Coalition’s marriage … Continued

Budget 2012: George Osborne is hitting families even harder

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This post originally appeared on The Guardian website Although the chancellor will only step up to the despatch box to present his budget later today, we already know about the changes that will have the greatest impact on Britain’s working families. That is because governments are in the habit of announcing changes years in advance, ensuring families … Continued

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