Analysis and action on living standards
A long view of living standards over recent decades
Leaving the EU represents the largest change in the UK’s relationship with the rest of the world in nearly half a century. It is a profound change in economic governance, that will reorient production and trade away from the EU and towards the domestic market, impacting people, places and firms across the UK. Understanding the scale and nature of this change, and the extent of the adjustment so far, is crucial for to policy makers looking to reset the country’s economic strategy. That is the focus of this report, part of the Economy 2030 Inquiry.
The Resolution Foundation is an independent think-tank focused on improving living standards for those on low to middle incomes. We work across a wide range of economic and social policy, combining our core purpose with a commitment to analytical rigour.
It is well known that UK population ageing is set to accelerate in the 2020s. As a result, the discussion around demographic change tends to fixate on the fiscal implications from increased public spending pressures. But demographic change has wider implications for economies – it influences the size and shape of the labour market, demand for public and private goods and services, economic growth, and ultimately, living standards. This briefing note investigates the economic impacts of demographic change that are often overlooked.
This briefing note uses a relatively under-exploited source of data to analyse how average incomes at the local authority level have changed since 1997. This allows us to look beyond variations across place in wages and salaries, to other sources of income; study the distribution of incomes at a lower level of geography than is often the case; and observe how incomes in different places have changed relative to each other over a period of more than 20 years.
The Resolution Foundation calculates the real Living Wage – a voluntary hourly pay rate that is based on what families need to get by. The current national rate is:
Resolution Ventures exists to back innovative start-ups seeking to change the world of work for the better and early-stage ventures seeking to improve the prospects of low-to-middle income Britain.
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In our twelfth annual edition of Low Pay Britain, we take stock of how low paid work has changed over the past two decades during the existence of the minimum wage in the UK.
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