Low Pay Britain 2023

Improving low-paid work through higher minimum standards

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After a decade and a half of relative economic decline, Britain needs a new economic strategy. And good work must be at its heart – an explicit goal, not a hoped-for by-product of growth. This is a necessary precondition for a strategy that offers a credible promise of shared prosperity in the years ahead, strengthening … Continued

Wages are flatlining

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This Thursday, the Bank of England (BoE)’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meets. Discussion of whether the central bank has one final rate rise in it before pausing have focused on whether the Bank’s hand will be stayed by the instability we are seeing playing out in the banking sector from Silicon Valley to Switzerland (in … Continued

We’re going on a growth Hunt

Putting the 2023 Spring Budget in context

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This report examines the economic backdrop to Budget 2023, and assesses whether the Chancellor has successfully delivered on his central objective of boosting growth through higher employment and business investment.

Costly differences

Living standards for working-age people with disabilities

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The cost of living crisis has shone a harsh light on different groups’ ability to deal with fast- rising prices. In this briefing note, we focus on the living standards of people with disabilities, including results from a new survey of just under 8,000 working-age adults, over 2,000 of whom reported a long-term illness or … Continued

Hitting a brick wall

How the UK can upgrade its housing stock to reduce energy bills and cut carbon

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This briefing note considers how policy makers should square up to one the hardest part of the net zero challenge: insulating the nation’s homes. It highlights an overlooked problem, the 9 million walls that need insulating at considerable costs, and proposes a series of new regulations to ensure progress is made by 2035, lowering carbon emissions and cutting energy bills in the process.

Help today, squeeze tomorrow

Putting the 2022 Autumn Statement in context

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This report presents Resolution Foundation’s analysis of the 2022 Autumn Statement. In the face of grim economic and fiscal forecasts, Jeremy Hunt announced energy support today but tougher times tomorrow, with stealth tax rises for the middle and top of the income distribution followed by spending cuts after the next election.

Income outcomes

Assessing income gaps between places across the UK

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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. It provides a more complete view of income gaps across the country than has been possible to date, a vital input to the Economy 2030 Inquiry as it seeks to answer the question: how can a new economic strategy address the spatial disparities that have beset the UK for so long?

Net zero jobs

The impact of the transition to net zero on the UK labour market

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The Government’s commitment to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 will mean investment, and change, across the economy: from the decarbonisation of buildings and surface transport, to shifts in diet, aviation and industry. These changes will affect the UK public, both as consumers and as workers. This briefing note explores the impact that … Continued

Begin again?

Assessing the permanent implications of Covid-19 for the UK’s labour market

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Covid-19 has had profound impacts on the way that we work. This report, part of the Economy 2030 Inquiry, considers recent labour market developments with an eye on the longer-term changes, and the resulting challenges for policy makers over the rest of this decade.

Covid-19
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Labour market

Post-furlough blues

What happened to furloughed workers after the end of the Job Retention Scheme?

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Going into the autumn, most official forecasters expected unemployment to be little affected by the ending of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (JRS), which closed in September 2021. However, there were still 1.1 million workers on furlough as the scheme ended, skewed towards sectors like aviation that are still far from reaching pre-pandemic levels of … Continued

Levelling up and down Britain

How the labour market recovery varies across the country

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No part of the UK has been unaffected by the pandemic labour market shock, but both the initial hit and subsequent bounce-back have been uneven across places. Although employee numbers are back to pre-pandemic form in many parts of the country, in some regions (most notably, London) the jobs recovery has a long way to … Continued

Spending fast, taxing slow

Resolution Foundation analysis of Budget 2021

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This briefing note provides an assessment of the measures announced in the March 2021 Budget. The context for this Budget was an intensification of the Covid-19 pandemic, creating a need for further policy measures to support families and firms in the months before the completion of the vaccine rollout. In response, the Chancellor announced significant … Continued

How to throw good money after good

Budget 2021 and the challenge of delivering a rapid recovery from Covid-19

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While the strength of the economic recovery from Covid-19 will depend on the vaccine rollout and the Government’s ‘road map’ for easing social distancing restrictions, it will also depend on decisions taken at the Budget which are the economic counterpart to that reopening plan. This paper assesses the economic context to the Budget: how the … Continued

Local differences

Responding to the local economic impact of coronavirus

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Britain’s jobs crisis has hit every part of the country hard. At a headline regional level, job loss and furloughing has been fairly evenly spread. But increases in unemployment-related benefit claims have been larger in areas that started out with higher claimant rates, with this especially true when we focus at a more local level. … Continued

Public finances under pressure

Lessons for policy makers from April’s public finance figures

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April’s Public Sector Finances data capture the first full month of the coronavirus lockdown and provide a sobering reminder of the fiscal costs of the pandemic. Public sector net borrowing was £62.1 billion last month, the highest level ever recorded and nearly three time higher than the last record of £22 billion in April 2012. … Continued

Covid-19

Risky business

Economic impacts of the coronavirus crisis on different groups of workers

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The coronavirus crisis has affected everyone. Everyone’s health is at risk and to combat the disease, working lives have been altered across the country. But some are affected more than others: the relationship between the kind of job people have and their exposure to big economic or health risks in this crisis is by no … Continued

Doing more of what it takes

Next steps in the economic response to coronavirus

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The Government has responded to coronavirus by shutting down large parts of the UK economy, and socialising the costs of doing so through a package of fiscal support to firms and individuals unprecedented in size and scope. Given uncertainty about how long public health restrictions will need to be in place, economic policy makers need to be prepared to manage what could … Continued

Living standards
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Inequality & poverty
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Cities and regions
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Political parties and elections

Painting the towns blue

Demography, economy and living standards in the political geographies emerging from the 2019 General Election

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This report provides an audit of the demography, economy and living standards of what we term the ‘Blue Wall’: the 50 seats that were gained by the Conservatives from Labour in the North East and West, Yorkshire and the Humber, the East and West Midlands, and Wales. We explore whether simplistic characterisations of the Blue … Continued

Demographics
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Intergenerational Centre

Ageing, fast and slow

When place and demography collide

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Demographic divergence matters for local government, for local economies, and for our politics. This report describes differences in ageing in different regions across the UK, and examines the implications for our politics and policy.

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