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Living standards


Material living standards are the result of labour market outcomes, taxes, benefits, housing and more. Bringing all of these together, we track past, present and projected changes in incomes to assess how the economy is really working for households. We look especially at low-to-middle-income families, and at the various inequalities in modern Britain.

Contacts

Adam Corlett

Principal Economist
T: 020 3372 2983
E: adam.corlett@resolutionfoundation.org

Lalitha Try

Economist
T: 0203 372 2906
E: lalitha.try@resolutionfoundation.org
Publications

From safety net to springboard

Designing an unemployment insurance scheme to protect living standards and boost economic dynamism

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Losing your job in Britain is a very risky business. Low levels of out-of-work benefits are rarely an adequate safety net for those who experience job loss, and workers in…
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Publications

Half time

The UK’s commitment to halve poverty by 2030

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On 18-19 September, representatives from around the world – including the Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden and the Foreign Secretary James Cleverly – will meet for a UN summit on…
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Publications

The Living Standards Outlook – Summer 2023 Update

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Household incomes are always a crucial perspective on how living standards are changing, particularly during economic crises. And in democracies, changing living standards also matter for politics, particularly ahead of…
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Events

A living standards election?

What the year ahead could mean for family - and political - fortunes

The cost of living crisis has not only dragged on longer than anyone hoped, it has evolved. As the focus has moved from energy bills to food prices, alongside rising…
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Events

Enlightened economics

Lessons from Adam Smith on the economic challenges facing modern Britain

Adam Smith was a leading political economy thinker of the Scottish enlightenment in the mid-late 18th century. But as the “Father of Capitalism” his pioneering work on free market economics…
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Events

Transformation nation

Steering Britain out of stagnation

The final report of The Economy 2030 Inquiry Register to attend in person or to receive an access link for online viewers. The UK economy is living with a toxic…
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Events

Shared prosperity

What would it take to see a return to rising living standards for all?

Britain is stagnating. Productivity growth is flatlining, workers today are earning the same wages as their predecessors in 2007, and living standards growth had slowed to a crawl even before…
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Publications

Food for thought

The role of food prices in the cost of living crisis

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The cost of living crisis is often thought of as a cost of energy crisis. That is an understandable, but increasingly inadequate, view. In particular, it understates the growing role…
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