Labour market 2018’s lesson for its successor – look beneath the headlines Top of the Charts 28 December 2018 Morning all, Well survived Christmas. Just New Year to go. You can do it. To help prep for next week and the need for more creative New Year’s resolutions than eat nothing/drink nothing/run miles we’ve got a special edition of Top of the Charts below. It looks back at 2018, digging under the headlines to … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Inequality & poverty· Pay The £3.2bn pay penalty facing black and ethnic minority workers 27 December 2018 by Kathleen Henehan It’s that time of the year when everyone does their reviews of 2018. The political review of the year will inevitably be dominated by the thrills and spills of Brexit. But for those interested in public policy, a strong contender for the Resolution Foundation’s ‘policy that could make a big difference to people’s living standards’ … Continued READ MORE
Housing Home ownership is rising, but the crisis is far from over 22 December 2018 by Daniel Tomlinson Across the country today hundreds of thousands of twenty and thirtysomethings are heading back to their parents’ homes for Christmas. Most (around two-thirds) of these parents are home owners, but the same cannot be said for their kids. Home ownership rates have fallen across all age groups in the UK in recent decades, with the … Continued READ MORE
Resolution Times Christmas Special Top of the Charts 21 December 2018 Morning all, It’s the last working day before Christmas (Eve)* and so reading through the best economics research papers of the week is hopefully not at the top of your to-do list. If it is, don’t worry – you can get help for that. For the rest of you we’ve got a selection of Top … Continued READ MORE
Welfare Boosting benefit take-up is critical to the success of Universal Credit, but we might not be able to measure whether it’s working 20 December 2018 by George Bangham and Adam Corlett Benefit take-up rates matter. A lot. If households aren’t actually receiving the benefits that government policy entitles them to, their incomes will be lower and the social safety net will not work as intended. The government’s own estimates of benefits take-up suggest that billions of pounds worth of benefits probably go unclaimed each year. Take-up … Continued READ MORE
Welfare Three steps to make it a happier new year for Universal Credit 18 December 2018 by Laura Gardiner Universal Credit (UC) was a surprise contender for one of the big stories of the Budget, with the Chancellor announcing a welcome reinjection of cash into the system. UC has (finally) hit another important milestone too – as of December 2018, it is on offer to all new claimants of working-age benefits in jobcentres across … Continued READ MORE
Labour market Enforce the rules to help workers in Britain’s changing workforce 17 December 2018 by Lindsay Judge It’s here at last. Almost a year and a half after the Taylor Review was published and four consultations on, the government has finally released its plan of action to improve the quality of jobs in the UK. So is this an early Christmas present for the millions of people who work through an agency, … Continued READ MORE
Budgets & fiscal events· Public spending· Economy and public finances Hitting the books: student loans and the public finances 16 December 2018 by Matthew Whittaker With everything that’s going on in British politics right now, it’s easy to forget that the government was celebrating some seriously good news just seven weeks ago. You might remember that the Chancellor got handed a £74 billion fiscal windfall at the Budget that allowed him to deliver the long-promised extra spending on the NHS … Continued READ MORE
Strong And Stable Britain Top of the Charts 14 December 2018 Afternoon all, Having spent this morning at the dentist enduring fairly nonstop pain for no real progress I have new found empathy for the Prime Minister’s experience this week. She can obviously take some comfort from the evidence that her would be assassins of the ERG variety are a bit more Johnny English than James Bond. There’s even … Continued READ MORE
Labour market Good tidings from the UK labour market 11 December 2018 by Nye Cominetti Earlier this year, in a fit of optimism, the ONS moved its monthly labour market stats release from Wednesday to Tuesday morning so that the data would have proper scrutiny before PMQs. With little in the way of voting going on, MPs can now spend the next 24 hours poring over the latest employment and … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Skills Apprenticeships have a starring role in the government’s technical education reforms. But are they delivering? 8 December 2018 by Kathleen Henehan Rarely a headline-grabber in the broadsheets (or indeed, the tabloids), yesterday’s speech on technical education by the Education Secretary offered a welcome respite from the mind-numbing livestream of Brexit-related updates. The central premise of Damian Hinds’ speech – that the UK’s technical education system should offer young people clear routes into specialist, well-paid careers – … Continued READ MORE
Unlucky millennials, and why we’re better than the French Top of the Charts 7 December 2018 Afternoon all, Enough of the gloom – it’s time for a bit of national pride. Yes things are messy in Westminster, but we shouldn’t let this damage our national psyche – after all the REAL lesson of this week is that we’re better than the French*. Here are three reasons why. 1) Yes … Continued READ MORE
Wealth & assets· Housing· Intergenerational Centre The Bank of Mum and Dad pays out at least three times in life 4 December 2018 by Torsten Bell Times change, Britain changes, and it doesn’t stop changing just because we’re all naturally obsessed by Brexit. Our need to understand and respond to those changes is as big as ever – and nowhere is that more true than in the growing importance in our society of wealth, which has risen from three times our … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Productivity & industrial strategy· Pay· Economic growth Decoupling wages and recoupling living standards Top of the Charts 30 November 2018 Afternoon all, This week saw several major studies on the economic impacts of Brexit end games. Obviously you shouldn’t read them all, partly because you’ve got lives to lead, but also because it’s blindingly obvious what they say. And anyway who needs to bother with the serious business of weighing up the economic cost of a … Continued READ MORE
Counting snores and learning from wars Top of the Charts 23 November 2018 Afternoon all, Had enough of the Brexit chat yet? Thought so. Luckily we’re definitely not going to spend the next 10 years having the same conversation over and over and over again… Oh yes we are. It’s going to be like Groundhog Day. Without the happy ending. To get through the week I’ve been focusing … Continued READ MORE
Sex-starved youths and savings-starved pensioners. Top of the Charts 16 November 2018 Afternoon all, So the UK’s live broadcast episode of “Deal or No Deal” is in full swing and I’m sure we all feel very proud of ourselves. The only good news is that Noel Edmonds hasn’t yet made an appearance, although we’re not exactly short of badly dressed men from a time long past wandering … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Migration Migratory patterns in Britain’s labour market 13 November 2018 by Stephen Clarke More records tumbled in the UK labour market this summer. On jobs, we had good news on quantity and quality as the people in full-time employment reached a record high of nearly 24 million. And this record high is all the more striking as it came alongside a record fall in the number of EU … Continued READ MORE
Firms· Labour market Relocation, relocation, relocation – why workers in firms are increasingly staying put 13 November 2018 by Stephen Clarke Channel 4 (or at least some of it) is off to Leeds. Some staff may be relishing the move, some may have wanted to move to Manchester or Birmingham, while others may have just wanted to stay put. Despite the mixed feelings one thing is undisputed; Channel 4 staff are now part of an increasingly … Continued READ MORE
The dangers of excess cash bags and hashtags Top of the Charts 9 November 2018 Afternoon all, I know you’re all obsessed with the US mid-term elections this week, but I’ve got some lifestyle advice for you: it’s not good for your blood pressure. Not only does reading lots about it remind you that Donald Trump exists, but you may have noticed that – unless you’re a US citizen over … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Housing· Wellbeing and mental health· Time use· Intergenerational Centre All aboard the Millennial Express – longer commutes for less pay 8 November 2018 by Nye Cominetti The ONS serve to uplift and depress analysts like me in equal measure. And today they served up the latter, with new figures showing that the number of people commuting for more than an hour to get into work has increased by almost a third (31 per cent) since 2011. Longer commutes are good news … Continued READ MORE
Shame, Zombies and Die Hard Top of the Charts 2 November 2018 Afternoon all, Good lord we’ve had (almost) an entire week without Brexit chat. Yes, it’s cost us £55bn via a giveaway Budget to make it happen – but frankly that feels like money well spent (especially the £1.7bn going back into Universal Credit). Our gratitude to the Chancellor has however been severely tested. No, not … Continued READ MORE
Budgets & fiscal events· Public spending· Economy and public finances Pessimism, Politics and Economics: the real Budget story 2 November 2018 by James Smith Debates following this week’s Budget have been dominated by political arguments about whether the Chancellor’s spending splurge means that austerity had been ended or lives on (our view: austerity was significantly eased but not ended). But another debate has been conspicuously absent this week, having dominated the UK’s political economy for the past eight years: … Continued READ MORE
Budgets & fiscal events· Labour market· Low pay Never mind the end of austerity, what about the end of low pay? 2 November 2018 by Conor D’Arcy While post-Budget debates on austerity and tax cuts rumble on, one clear living standards win on Monday was an increase in the National Living Wage (NLW). But beyond announcing the rate for next year, the government also used the Budget to set out a bold new aspiration that could have major implications: ending low pay. … Continued READ MORE
Housing Lifting the lid on the HRA cap 31 October 2018 by Lindsay Judge and Daniel Tomlinson Budget 2018 may have been a bigger deal than most of us expected but it’s been underwhelming when it comes to housing, especially given the government claimed just weeks ago that ‘solving the housing crisis is the biggest domestic policy challenge of our generation’. That said, we do now have details about the lifting of … Continued READ MORE
Budgets & fiscal events· Public spending· Economy and public finances The Budget marks a very significant easing – but not an end of austerity 30 October 2018 by Torsten Bell Marriages require compromise. So we shouldn’t be surprised that the reluctant political marriage between Theresa May and Phillip Hammond has delivered a compromise Budget. Caught between the Prime Ministers promise to “end austerity”, the wish to see debt falling, and the reality of the parliamentary arithmetic making significant tax rises difficult the Chancellor has taken … Continued READ MORE