Living standards

Inequality of post-tax income among pre-tax equals is evaluated and aggregated to form a global index of horizontal inequity in the income tax.

This article describes the changing patterns in income inequality and real living standards over the last 30 years.

This report provides, for the first time ever, a consistently defined picture of living standards in the UK over the last three decades. Looking in detail at patterns in income inequality, and at the changing fortunes of the richest and the poorest, this report puts the trends of the 1980s into the context of 30 years.

Very little is known about how households hold their savings, if they have any at all. This study shows how the amount and nature of household saving and wealth vary across different household types.

This paper considers the impact on households of imposing VAT on domestic energy, and the extent to which the social security system will safeguard poorer households against the additional tax burden.

This paper sets out to explore theoretically how a change in the distribution of disposable income affects the market demand for a good or service.

The purpose of this Commentary is to evaluate the merits of different methods of measuring low income, and to comment on the results of two main sets of UK low income statistics.

This commentary analyses three seperate studies which attempt to assess the extent of poverty in the UK and asks why these studies produced apparently different results.

These two reports form the latest in a series of IFS studies on poverty and low incomes in the United Kingdom.

This commentary concentrates on the particular issues raised by environmental taxation, in the form of the additional tax burden and its distribution accross households.

In the ten year period of Mrs Thatcher's government, and especially over the last few years, there have been many changes to the tax and benefit system.