A future Labour government would restore the 50p tax rate for those earning over £150,000 a year, Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls has said.
 
The previous Labour government created a new 50 per cent tax band in 2010 for anyone with income of more than £150,000 a year, but this was cut to 45 per cent by the coalition government in April 2013.
 

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has said he wants to see an above-inflation increase in the minimum wage. In an exclusive interview with the BBC he said that the adult minimum wage, currently £6.31 an hour, would have to increase to £7 an hour by 2015 for its value to return to where it was before the global economic recession.
 

Thousands of people have been wrongly identified as being liable for the 'bedroom tax', including some who now face eviction or have been forced to move to a smaller property, according to a report in the Guardian newspaper. This is a result, says the paper, of an error by the Department of Work and Pensions.

The television broadcaster Channel 4 has begun showing a five-part documentary series about people living in a deprived street in Birmingham. The series – called 'Benefits Street' – was filmed in James Turner Street in the Winson Green area of Birmingham: the area has a very high rate of unemployment and the street has many residents who rely on benefits for their income.