The Chancellor will need to confront the good (allocating £100 billion of capital spending), the bad (finding £8 billion of further cuts to already stretched public services) and the ugly (a possible downgrade to the economic outlook that would require fresh tax rises, spending cuts or breaking the fiscal rules) in her upcoming Spending Review, … Continued

The Government’s Industrial Strategy Green Paper has a welcome focus on leveraging Britain’s economic strengths – as an exporter of services, a European leader for defence, and a strong university-led research base – and identifies a sensible set of clusters and growth industries. But to focus on these, the strategy will need to pass over … Continued

More than one in four children (27 per cent – 1.1 million in total) in poverty would not have been living below the poverty line in recent years (2022-23) were it not for high housing costs – a sign the Government must prioritise tackling housing unaffordability in its upcoming Child Poverty Strategy, says new Resolution … Continued

The Government’s new targets of raising Real Household Disposable Income (RHDI) and GDP per person over the Parliament at both a national and regional level is a welcome move that should focus minds across Whitehall about the need to raise household living standards. However, with the national RHDI milestone having been hit in every parliament … Continued

Agricultural Relief for Inheritance Tax (IHT) is estimated to cost the Exchequer £700 million this year (2024-25), delivering savings of more than £300,000 each to the approximately 1,700 estates who claim it (based on the latest available data in 2021-22), and demonstrating why the Government is right to scale it back, the Resolution Foundation said … Continued

Wealth gaps between young and older households widened in the decade running up to the pandemic, but rising interest rates have put this into reverse – with the average wealth gap between households in their 30s and 60s falling by £86,000 over the past five years, according to new Resolution Foundation research published today (Thursday). … Continued

Today’s ‘Get Britain Working’ White Paper should nudge Britain closer to the Government’s stretching 80 per cent employment target. But to really make a difference, the Government will need to properly resource its ‘youth guarantee’ and get benefit reforms right – a challenge that has been left for another day. The Foundation says setting Britain … Continued

Increasing transfers between generations – from housing young adults to financial gifts and inheritances, and caring for children, adults and elderly relatives – are having a profound, but unequally felt, impact on people’s economic prospects, according to new research from the Resolution Foundation and CPC-Connecting Generations published today (Thursday). The Intergenerational Audit 2024 – part … Continued

CPI inflation increased by 2.3 per cent in October – a bigger increase than either the Bank of England or markets expected – with increases in core and services inflation completing a triple dose of bad news for families and policy makers, the Resolution Foundation said today (Wednesday). While a rise in inflation was always … Continued

ONS labour market statistics have misrepresented recent trends in the UK labour market – by under-estimating the growth in employment by 930,000 workers since 2019, and over-estimating the extent of economic inactivity, according to new Resolution Foundation research published today (Wednesday). As the new Government prepares to publish a White Paper that reaffirms its ambition … Continued

Today (Tuesday) the Resolution Foundation has announced that Ruth Curtice has been appointed as its new Chief Executive and will start on January 20th 2025. Ruth is currently Director of fiscal policy at HM Treasury (HMT) where she has worked for over 15 years. Her career has focused on domestic economic policy including labour markets, … Continued

GDP growth slowed to 0.1 per cent in the third quarter of 2024, leaving the UK falling below the US in terms of growth across G7 economies, the Resolution Foundation said today (Friday) in response to the latest ONS data. Following a recession in the second half of 2023, the UK economy bounced back in … Continued

50 is the new 20 for the 13 million families that make up an older, modern-day low-to-middle income Britain, who are also more likely to suffer from poor health or a disability compared to three decades ago. But despite these headwinds, which have come to the fore since the pandemic, lower-income families are far more … Continued

Britain’s three-year period of high vacancies has ended, with vacancy rates now back to pre-pandemic levels in both the private and public sectors, while pay rises continue to slow as a result, the Resolution Foundation said today (Tuesday) in response to the latest labour market statistics. The latest data shows vacancy levels falling again, as … Continued

Spending on childcare has increased by 41 per cent over the past decade, boosting support for working parents. But major gaps in support mean that parents in education are missing out, with a parent studying in Further Education (FE) in England receiving no guaranteed support, according to new research published today (Saturday) by the Resolution … Continued

The first Labour Budget in nearly 15 years marked a decisive shift from the planned cuts set out by the last Government, with better-funded public services and greater public investment coming from higher taxes and more borrowing. But the Budget has not yet delivered a decisive shift away from Britain’s record as a ‘stagnation nation’, … Continued

The Chancellor has set out plans to boost real-terms spending on public services and investment (TDEL) by £326 billion (in current prices) across the next five years, funded in part by the biggest package of tax rises on record, the Resolution Foundation said today (Wednesday) in its quickfire analysis of the Budget. In the first … Continued

Commenting on reports that the Chancellor is set to announce that the headline rate of the National Living Wage will rise by 6.6 per cent to £12.20 an hour next April, Nye Cominetti, Principal Economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “Millions of low earners are set for good news in the Budget when the Chancellor … Continued

Central government spending is already £11.5 billion above the OBR’s March forecast, six months into the fiscal year, highlighting the scale of the public finances challenge facing the Chancellor ahead of her first Budget next week, the Resolution Foundation said today (Tuesday). The vast majority (£9.7 billion) of central government overspending in the current financial … Continued

Decarbonising Britain’s transport will be challenging as it accounts for over a third of all UK emissions. But doing so effectively could save households £22 billion (£650 per household on average, in current prices) in 2035, according to new analysis from the Resolution Foundation published today (Thursday). The report Getting the green light, funded by … Continued

CPI inflation fell to 1.7 per cent in September, down from 2.2 in August, and ahead of a likely jump in October. This otherwise welcome temporary dip is bad timing for millions of low-to-middle income families, as the lower September figure will be used to uprate working-age benefits next Spring, the Resolution Foundation said today … Continued

The continued softening of the jobs market – with quarter-on-quarter growth in payrolled employment falling for the first time since January 2021 – suggests that the UK’s brief era of healthy real terms pay growth could end soon, the Resolution Foundation said today (Tuesday). While ongoing data quality issues mean little can be taken from … Continued

The Government’s new industrial strategy – which identifies eight priority sectors for the UK – has doubled down on leveraging Britain’s strengths as a services superpower, and offers a huge opportunity to boost growth in major cities, the Resolution Foundation said today (Monday) in response to the Industrial Strategy Green Paper. The Green Paper identifies … Continued

The Chancellor should use her first Budget to rewrite the existing debt rule to enable higher public investment and boost growth. But this won’t solve wider tax and spend challenges, with £20 billion of tax rises needed to ‘end austerity’, according to the Resolution Foundation’s pre-Budget report. The report notes that the upcoming Budget is … Continued

The package of measures included in the Employment Rights Bill should deliver a marked improvement in working conditions for millions of low earners across Britain, who are most likely to benefit from stronger protection from unfair dismissal, improved access to sick pay, and greater security in working hours. But the job is far from done, … Continued