Living standards· Inequality & poverty Turning the tide What it will take to reduce child poverty in the UK 26 February 2025 by Alex Clegg and Adam Corlett Ahead of the Government’s Child Poverty Strategy, which promises to bring about “an enduring reduction in child poverty”, this report looks at what might be needed to achieve this welcome goal in the face of significant headwinds. READ MORE
Living standards· Inequality & poverty Working poverty out The role of employment and progression in a child poverty strategy 6 January 2025 by Mike Brewer and Alex Clegg The Government is committed to releasing a child poverty strategy later this year. As part of this, Ministers will want to consider how best parental employment can help boost family incomes. But the mid-2020s present a different landscape for child poverty and parental employment from when the last Labour Government crafted its child poverty strategy. … Continued READ MORE
Inequality & poverty· Welfare Cold comfort Mitigating the Winter Fuel Payment cut 1 October 2024 by Alex Clegg and Jonathan Marshall The announcement that Winter Fuel Payments are to be restricted to recipients of Pension Credit or similar means-tested benefits has sparked controversy[1]. The Government and its defenders point to the lack of sense, in these straitened times, of making fuel payments to all pensioners when the majority do not need them. Opponents, however, highlight the … Continued READ MORE
Inequality & poverty· Cities and regions Uneven ground Assessing the state of UK geographic economic inequality facing the new Government 6 August 2024 by Charlie McCurdy The new Government inherits an economy marked by 16 years of stagnation and high levels of inequality, with regional inequalities among the most important. This briefing note assesses the state of geographic economic inequality facing the new Government. In the world of social science there are heated debates about which measure to focus on, but … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030· Inequality & poverty· Cities and regions· Housing· Economic growth Talking trade-offs Deliberations on a higher-productivity future in the Birmingham and Greater Manchester urban areas 30 November 2023 by Tania Burchardt and Tara Goatley and Lindsay Judge The cities of Manchester and Birmingham may have illustrious economic histories, but today both underperform the national average on a number of key economic measures. This is especially the case when it comes to productivity growth. Accelerating productivity in each city region would require radical reforms trade-offs to be made, but these changes cannot be … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Inequality & poverty· Welfare Half time The UK’s commitment to halve poverty by 2030 18 September 2023 by Adam Corlett 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 the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These goals are not just about development in poorer countries: the targets and the discussions around this summit have relevance … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Prices & consumption· Inequality & poverty Costly differences Living standards for working-age people with disabilities 4 January 2023 by Omar El Dessouky and Charlie McCurdy 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 READ MORE
Living standards· Prices & consumption· Inequality & poverty Cutting back to keep warm Why low-income households will have to cut back on spending by three times as much as high-income households this winter 15 August 2022 by Karl Handscomb and Jonathan Marshall This winter, low-income households will have to reduce their spending by three times as much as high-income households in order to afford their energy bills – a situation that is particularly concerning now that we know energy bills in January-March 2023 are set to be an annualised £4,266, rather than the £2,800 expected earlier this … Continued READ MORE
Household debt· Inequality & poverty· Wealth & assets Arrears fears The distribution of UK household wealth and the impact on families 20 July 2022 by Molly Broome and Jack Leslie The defining economic challenge for UK families at the moment is the cost of living crisis, rising inflation threatens living standards in the UK as real incomes fall. Owning wealth helps protect against the adverse effects, particularly for those who can rely on savings. Therefore, the current crisis has thrown wealth inequality into the spotlight. … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Inequality & poverty The Living Standards Audit 2022 4 July 2022 by Adam Corlett and Felicia Odamtten and Lalitha Try This report, the 14th in an annual series, takes a long view of what has happened to household incomes in Britain over recent decades, what has driven periods of growth and stagnation, and the lessons that need to be learned if Britain is to return to stronger income growth in the decade ahead. The report … Continued READ MORE
Incomes· Living standards· Prices & consumption· Inequality & poverty Stressed out April brings an acute squeeze on UK living standards as higher energy bills lead to widespread fuel stress 1 April 2022 by Adam Corlett and Jonathan Marshall April 2022 will see the UK’s cost of living crisis intensify as energy prices jump by more than half overnight, pushing 5 million English households into fuel stress, even accounting for support measures recently announced by the Chancellor. This is not the end, though. Against a backdrop of the highest inflation rate in 40 years … Continued READ MORE
Public spending· Prices & consumption· Inequality & poverty· Economy and public finances The price is right? The April 2022 energy price rise and the Government’s response 4 February 2022 by Adam Corlett and Karl Handscomb and Lindsay Judge and James Smith The Government has opted for universalism and minimising the hit to the public purse in its response to the energy price rise yesterday. The announced measures take the sting out of Ofgem’s £693 rise in the energy price cap in April with a broad-based package of support. All households will get a £200 discount on … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Inequality & poverty Improving our understanding of UK poverty will require better data 6 January 2021 by Adam Corlett Policy makers across the political spectrum want to improve the living standards of the UK’s poorer households. The Leader of the House of Commons recently stated that “We are committed to our manifesto pledge to reduce child poverty”, while the last Labour manifesto pledged to “eradicate in-work poverty”. So statistics about poverty matter. We need … Continued READ MORE
Incomes· Inequality & poverty· Wealth & assets· Tax Who gains? The importance of accounting for capital gains 21 May 2020 by Adam Corlett and Arun Advani and Andy Summers This report looks at what we know about taxable capital gains; how our understanding of top income shares changes if we include capital gains in our analysis; and whether official statistical definitions of income should be changed or supplemented. READ MORE
Living standards· Inequality & poverty· Cities and regions· Political parties and elections Painting the towns blue Demography, economy and living standards in the political geographies emerging from the 2019 General Election 12 February 2020 by Charlie McCurdy and Laura Gardiner and Maja Gustafsson and Karl Handscomb 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 READ MORE
Incomes· Pensions & savings· Inequality & poverty· Wealth & assets· Political parties and elections Who owns all the pie? The size and distribution of Britain’s £14.6 trillion of wealth 5 December 2019 by George Bangham and Jack Leslie While incomes have stagnated over the past decade, our national wealth has continued to boom. Data released today put UK households collective wealth at £14.6 trillion. But that total is far from equally distributed: the richest 10 per cent of households own almost half of the nation’s wealth having benefitted most from the recent wealth … Continued READ MORE
Incomes· Living standards· Prices & consumption· Inequality & poverty· Welfare The benefit freeze has ended, but erosion of the social security safety net continues Expected benefit uprating in April 2020 16 October 2019 by Adam Corlett Major working-age benefits will rise in cash terms in April 2020, for the first time in five years. But while the benefit freeze has now ended, its effect of significantly weakening the social security safety net has not. READ MORE
Incomes· Living standards· Inequality & poverty· Social mobility Tackling structural inequality should sit at the heart of boosting living standards 8 October 2019 by Fahmida Rahman Tackling inequality is a long game, particularly when faced with deeply embedded structural inequalities. And understanding how structural inequality plays out across different people, places and points in time requires the adoption of a new focus within the researcher and policy making community. READ MORE
Inequality & poverty· Wealth & assets· Scotland Taking stock Report for the Scottish Poverty and Inequality Commission 30 July 2019 by George Bangham and Lindsay Judge There has been a growing appreciation in recent years that living standards are determined not just by income (the flow of money into a household) but also by wealth (the stock of assets a household owns). Wealth can take various forms: it can be held in financial instruments (for example, a savings account or as … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Inequality & poverty· Cities and regions Mapping gaps Geographic inequality in productivity and living standards 11 July 2019 by Stephen Clarke Regional inequality is a hot topic, particularly since the EU referendum exposed huge voting divides between London, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the rest of the UK. This report examines the relative economic performance of UK regions and nations since the 1960s, and the extent to which this has driven differences in household living standards. READ MORE
Living standards· Inequality & poverty· Intergenerational Centre The generation of poverty: Poverty over the life course for different generations 22 May 2019 by Fahmida Rahman Poverty is an age-old problem, but its prevalence has shifted greatly over time. As inequality grew rapidly throughout the 1980s, relative poverty grew with it, peaking at 25 per cent in the mid-1990s. READ MORE
Living standards· Inequality & poverty· Scotland Wrong direction: can Scotland hit its child poverty targets? 22 March 2019 by Adam Corlett The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 created targets for the reduction of child poverty, in a welcome attempt to ensure that poverty reduction remained a policy priority. But agreeing to reduce poverty is easier than doing it. What are the prospects for the Scottish government hitting its goals? READ MORE
Living standards· Inequality & poverty An unexpected cut: Revisiting the Diamond Commission and assessing inequality in post-war Britain 10 August 2018 by Tom Kelsey In 1974, the government established the Diamond Commision on the Distribution of Income and Wealth. This note looks at the Commission’s findings and considers how Britain has changed in the intervening years. It looks at the impact the findings had on policy and public debate in the country and reflects on what can be learnt by those trying to secure a more equal Britain today. This project was undertaken as part of the Historians in Residence programme, which is based at King’s College, London. READ MORE
Living standards· Inequality & poverty The Living Standards Audit 2018 24 July 2018 by Adam Corlett and Stephen Clarke and Conor D’Arcy and John Wood Britain’s weak post-crisis living standards recovery went into reverse last year for the poorest 30 per cent of families. Our analysis shows how important cash benefits like tax credits have been for supporting ‘just about managing’ families and tackling child poverty since the millennium. READ MORE
Living standards· Pay· Inequality & poverty Opportunities Knocked? Exploring pay penalties among the UK’s ethnic minorities 18 July 2018 by Kathleen Henehan and Helena Rose Over the past two decades ethnic minority groups have made substantial gains in relation to education and employment. But in spite of this progress, large pay gaps remain: even after accounting for education, occupation and other key factors, black male graduates are on average paid 17 per cent less than their white male counterparts; Pakistani/Bangladeshi non-graduate men are paid 14% less. READ MORE
