Leveraging Policy Data and Harmonized Survey Data to Protect Health and Economic Security:...
Inequality
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18/03/2014
Call for life-cycle perspective on inequality
Relying on a 'snapshot' perspective tends to overstate inequalities in living standards between individuals, according to a new report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The authors call instead for inequalities to be examined from a life-cycle perspective. Key points Most analysis of the impact of taxes and benefits on households is cross-sectional, with individuals classified as rich or poor using a single snapshot of data (often relating to a week or month). However, income and circumstances do not remain constant over time but vary across the life cycle. In particular, employment outcomes, household composition and health status all exhibit strong age profiles. This means that many more individuals experience circumstances of interest to policy-makers (such as unemployment or claiming out-of-work benefits) at some point in their life than at a given snapshot.Category: Reports -
17/03/2014
Five families worth more than poorest 20 per cent
The five richest families in the UK are now wealthier than the bottom 20 per cent of the entire population, according to a briefing drawn up by Oxfam. That means just five households have more money than 12.6 million people put together – almost the same as the number of people living below the poverty line.
Category: Reports -
14/03/2014
Inequality ‘costs UK £39 billion a year’
The social and economic impact of inequality costs the UK the equivalent of over £39 billion every year, according to new calculations from the Equality Trust.
If inequality were reduced to the average level seen in other developed countries, the Trust says, the UK could expect to make significant savings through reduced ill-health and other social problems.
Category: Reports -
24/02/2014
Younger generation the ‘new poor’
The pay gap between the over-50s and under-21s has ballooned by 50 per cent in the past decade and a half, at the same time as people in their 20s have seen rents rise by more than a third, according to a new report from the Intergenerational Foundation.
Category: Reports -
11/02/2014
Richest 10 per cent have twice income of bottom half
The richest ten per cent of the UK working-age population now have nearly twice the original income between them of the entire bottom half of the distribution, according to a report from the Resolution Foundation think tank.
The Foundation's annual audit of trends in living standards also reveals that, despite the beginnings of a slow improvement, the living standards of the typical household will still be 3.5 per cent lower in 2018-19 than they were at the start of the financial crisis of 2008, only just inching above the level they were last at in 2005-06.
Category: Reports -
04/02/2014
Impact of redistribution on inequality in OECD
Governments are capable of reducing income inequality despite countervailing behavioural responses, according to a research paper from the Centre for European Economic Research in Mannheim.
The paper uses a panel of industrialised OECD countries over the period 1981-2005 to analyse the effect of redistributive policies on post-tax inequality.
Category: Reports -
15/11/2013
Wealthy Scots see fastest income growth
Scotland’s top one per cent of income earners – about 25,000 people – have increased their wages and total income at a greater rate than the rest of the nation’s workers in the past decade, according to a new report by a team at Stirling University.
Category: Reports -
25/09/2013
Rising income inequality in Germany
Worsening income inequality in Germany in recent decades is the result of a combination of factors that includes less effective state redistribution mechanisms, according to a paper from academics in Düsseldorf.
The paper examines the main drivers of the rise in income inequality observed over the period 1991–2010.Category: Reports -
16/09/2013
How to boost the wage share
There has been much debate on the merits of tackling inequality by prioritising ‘pre-distribution` - of attempting to achieve a more equal distribution of the cake before turning to ‘redistribution’ through tax and benefits. Stewart Lansley examines the possible impact of a number of measures on wage levels and the wage share.
Category: Articles -
22/08/2013
Redistribution impact – income definition ‘key’
The redistributive effect of tax and benefit systems depends heavily on the way in which income is defined, says a new working paper from the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
The paper examines how the distribution of income in three European countries (the UK, Belgium and Greece) changes when the standard definition of disposable income is replaced by a wider definition. The latter takes into account three 'I's – indirect taxes, imputed rent on owner-occupied housing, and in-kind benefits.Category: Reports
