Auto-enrolment has had a great beginning. But will it have a happy ending?

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We hear a lot about good policy plans gone wrong (Universal Credit springs to mind) for obvious reasons. But we ought to listen (and learn) from successes too. Auto-enrolment into workplace pension savings is the obvious candidate for this cheery policy tale, though the story has only just begun. Over nine million have signed up … Continued

What could the latest life expectancy projections mean for the State Pension Age?

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At the end of last week, the ONS published the latest future projections showing its best estimate of how long we can expect to live. We don’t automatically associate our living standards with factors like health or how many years of life we may have. But just like income, life expectancy is an important indicator … Continued

Let it go Chancellor. Why Philip Hammond should revisit the benefit freeze in next month’s Budget

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The weather might be un-seasonally warm just now, but millions of household budgets are in the grip of a four-year freeze that’s about to get colder still. For decades, the government’s default position has been to uprate the value of working-age benefits each April in line with the rate of inflation prevailing in the previous … Continued

A hat-trick of childcare policies are being rolled out this Autumn. But is the current approach an expensive own goal?

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Childcare support is all the rage. As well as being the focus of one of the key policy announcements at Labour Conference this week, the government is rolling out not one but three new policies this Autumn. Even in these austere times, the government is spending £2bn on the introduction of Tax Free Childcare and … Continued

Demographics
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Welfare
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Intergenerational Centre
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Political parties and elections

The welfare gap between young and old is set to widen, whoever wins the next election

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  We love a good welfare row in elections. Back in 2015, Labour was branded the ‘welfare party’ while the Conservatives were reluctant to divulge the details of the £12 billion cuts package they planned to announced shortly after the election. A cynic might wonder if they were planning to ditch that pledge in the … Continued

Automatic success for the people?

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Political commentators love a good high-profile policy disaster. Think NHS IT systems or the poll tax. But successes happen too. Usually they’re small scale, making incremental improvements, often for specific parts of the population. But just sometimes they’re a really big deal – fundamentally changing outcomes for millions of people. When such victories come along, … Continued

Will the new Chancellor pass the first major test of support for ‘just managing families’ in his Autumn Statement?

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We are approaching the time of the football season where managers start to lose their jobs. New appointees inevitably face lots of problems, but they have an opportunity to make a name for themselves by turning things around. The key is to identify where problems are and take effective and rapid action. Even with intense … Continued

Matthew Whittaker

Five charts that tell the story so far of the post-referendum economy

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Perhaps the only certainty in relation to the UK at the moment is that things look very uncertain. Longer-term, much will depend on just what Brexit ends up meaning. Shorter-term, most economists expect some form of demand-led slowdown – with general business and consumer uncertainty pulling back on investment and spending and sharp falls in … Continued

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