This report projects forwards the real spending power of typical households and the distribution of income to 2022-23. Results incorporate household income data up to 2015-16, what we know about the key drivers of living standards to 2017-18 and the latest economics forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).

This briefing note explores different sources of data on household incomes and inequality in the UK. It sets out some of the improvements already planned, and what else needs to be done so that this data continues to inform debate and public policy.

In this report we provide the first comprehensive look at the living standards of UK households in the year leading up to the 2017 general election, as well as a detailed look at the trends in living standards over the previous two decades. The years since the financial crisis have been far from an easy … Continued

This is the Resolution Foundation’s eighth annual state of the nation report on UK living standards. It comes at a time when the recovery from the last downturn is still incomplete for some, yet the threat of a new squeeze on living standards looms large. The financial crisis hit households hard, yet in the last … Continued

New governments have no record on which to be judged, meaning that a great deal of emphasis is placed on what they say. Our new Prime Minister has made it clear that her government will focus its attention on working families with relatively low earnings – those who are ‘just managing’. That approach has been … Continued

This is the Resolution Foundation’s seventh annual state of the nation report on living standards, and it is testament to the depth of the downturn that has gripped households since the financial crisis hit that average incomes only just appear to be returning to the level they were at when we published the first one in the series. In … Continued

We now know that the squeeze on living standards will be longer and deeper than projected this time last year. Average wages are not expected to rise in real terms until late 2014 after a period of stagnation and decline. Despite stronger than expected job growth in the private sector, many people continue to work … Continued

As wages stagnate but living costs keep rising, the pressure on working people grows more intense. The issue of living standards has become one of the most urgent challenges for politicians in both Britain and America. ‘The squeezed middle’ brings together experts from both sides of the Atlantic to ask what the UK can learn … Continued

Squeezed Britain reveals what life is really like for families who are in work but on a low to middle income. Facing a new tax credits squeeze on top of a continued fall in real wages and a growing chance of a lifetime in renting, this group’s household finances are increasingly precarious.

Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis for the Resolution Foundation Commission on Living Standards. Average UK household income has almost doubled in real terms over the past forty years. This report asks ‘From where has the growth in household income come?’ and answers this by analysing the various factors that have contributed to this growth. Although many … Continued

This analysis by the IFS for Resolution Foundation is concerned with decomposing UK household income growth between 1968 and 2008–09. It seeks to investigate the sources of the rise in average household income that has occurred in the UK over the last four decades and finds that there are several important sources of this growth, and that these sources … Continued

Workers in the bottom half of the earnings distribution have seen their fortunes decline significantly in the last thirty years. In the Resolution Foundation’s second report to the Commission on Living Standards Matthew Whittaker and Lee Savage explore who is receiving the fruits of growth and who is Missing Out.   

There is a general view that social mobility in Britain declined in the second half of the twentieth century, that Britain is no longer a meritocratic country where a person’s life chances are determined by effort and talent rather than by family background. Declining social mobility has been a concern for successive governments and the … Continued

There has been a lot of recent debate about what is middle income – but the range of ‘middles’ that can be derived from earnings and income data is potentially confusing. This briefing note attempts to provide some clarity, by detailing the relative merits and drawbacks of different approaches and sets out how a wide … Continued

At the heart of the Foundation’s mission is the identification and analysis of challenges faced by households that find it difficult to flourish in the market economy, while consistently falling on the wrong side of eligibility for state support. Squeezed Britain represents our annual in-depth study of these issues. Original analyses of a number of large-scale … Continued