Matthew Whittaker
Budgets & fiscal events
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Economy and public finances
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Political parties and elections

How far apart are the Conservatives and the Lib Dems on fiscal policy?

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Amid recent discussion of the key role that parties such as UKIP and the SNP might play in ‘propping up’ a minority government after 7 May, less attention appears to have been given to the continued potential leverage of the Liberal Democrats. Of course, any future negotiations will revolve around a multitude of issues and … Continued

Public spending
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Economy and public finances
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Political parties and elections

How far apart are the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats on fiscal policy: could the coalition renew its vows?

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Recently we looked at the degree of potential overlap between Labour and Liberal Democrat fiscal plans, and found that the parties are not as far apart as might first be assumed. In this second note, we consider the relative positions of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. The Conservative goal appears relatively straightforward: they want to … Continued

Pay

What’s holding back nominal wage growth?

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Today’s statistics mark another welcome step along the road in our long-overdue earnings recovery. A gentle improvement in regular pay in the three months to February 2015 (now 1.8 per cent, with the total pay measure that includes bonuses close by at 1.7 per cent), against a backdrop of inflation having fallen to 0 per … Continued

Public spending
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Economy and public finances
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Welfare
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Political parties and elections

Could Labour and the Liberal Democrats agree on deficit reduction and spending cuts?

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At first glance How much of a difference is there between Labour and the Liberal Democrats on fiscal policy (we’ll consider the gap between other parties in future briefings)? Labour’s policy is to get “the current budget into surplus and national debt falling as soon as possible within the next Parliament” – ‘current’ meaning excluding … Continued

Hollowing out – deeper than it sounds

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It’s rare that technical economic concepts make their way out of the halls of academia and into the mainstream. Yet the idea that labour markets in advanced economies are increasingly ‘polarising’ between ‘lovely’ and ‘lousy’ jobs – with middle-of-the-road jobs being ‘hollowed out’ and wage inequality rising as a result – is one that has … Continued

Productivity as much as politics will determine the scale of cuts and tax rises in the next parliament

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The scale of fiscal consolidation in the next parliament will depend largely on future productivity growth. Assuming the parties maintained their fiscal targets regardless of the underlying economic circumstances, a future Conservative government would be in the position of tightening less under a strong productivity scenario than is implied by existing Labour plans. Equally, a … Continued

Matthew Whittaker
Living standards
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Political parties and elections

Living standards in the downturn and recovery: the backdrop to the election

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After six long years, average pay is rising. The gains are currently modest, but momentum is expected to build in the coming months (thanks in no small part to falling inflation). And there’s evidence that household incomes have started to recover too. The best data on this is significantly out of date but, buoyed by … Continued

Are zero-hours contracts here to stay?

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In many ways, the growth of zero-hours contracts (ZHCs) has symbolised the UK’s labour market since the downturn began: contributing to both stronger than expected employment figures but also rising job insecurity. One of the big question marks though has been whether they are solely a symptom of the recession and would start to disappear … Continued

Pay

A £6.70 minimum wage – how ambitious a rise is it?

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The Low Pay Commission, the body tasked with advising the government on the national minimum wage’s (NMW) annual increase, has recommended it rise by just over 3 per cent, from £6.50 to £6.70, from October 2015. The second in its “new phase” of above-inflation rises after years of falling in real terms, any real increase … Continued

The SNP and austerity: how different are they to the other parties?

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Nicola Sturgeon gave a widely trailed speech in London earlier this week majoring on the SNP’s opposition to what she said was a ‘cosy consensus’ in Westminster on austerity. In providing a few new bits of information on the SNP’s view on public spending it helped fit another piece in the jigsaw that is the … Continued

The high road or the low road? What a balanced current budget by 2017-18 does and does not mean

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Taken at face value a new Charter for Budget Responsibility, with a goal of eliminating the structural current deficit by 2017-18, has potentially significant implications for the parties’ fiscal plans. This applies most to Labour – given their separate pledge to do this by 2019-20 – and to a significant extent for the Liberal Democrats. … Continued

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