Living standards

At this event, speaker set out what we know, and what we need to know, about the very rich in the UK. Using a mixture of data from household surveys and data from tax authorities, the speakers looked at various characteristics of those at the top of the income distribution.

In this Facebook Live event, IFS Research Economist Agnes Norris Keiller looked at the economics of income inequality, answering questions such as how is inequality changing, and what are the tradeoffs in achieving a more equal society?

Poverty, long associated with being out of work and with old age, is now mostly a phenomenon experienced by people who are actually in work or who are living in a household where someone is in work.

IFS researchers presented the key findings from the latest in the series of flagship IFS annual reports on living standards, poverty and inequality in the UK. Funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the report analysed the latest data on living standards, while setting this in the context of developments in pay, employment and inflation.

This report examines how living standards – most commonly measured by households’ incomes – have changed for different groups in the UK, and the consequences that these changes have for income inequality and for measures of deprivation and poverty. In this latest report, we focus in particular on those people who are poorest in society.

In this short observation, we set out new research about the recent changes to household incomes, and who has been most affected by the recent slowdown in household income growth.

The UK's lowest-paid workers are about to get a pay rise - the result of an increase in the minimum wage on Monday.Since it was introduced in 1999, the minimum wage has risen much faster than average pay. The government is considering what to do after 2020 and further rises are possible.

We cannot have our cake and eat it. Decisions have consequences, and so does failure to decide. Pretending that there are no consequences won’t make them go away.

Paying benefits to people of working age is a big part of what the government does.In fact, it spends more on these benefits than it does on education or national defence and policing. They account for roughly £1 in every £8 the government spends, or about £100bn a year. This is on top of the £120bn that is spent on benefits for pensioners. A look at the size of the bill and who gets these benefits reveals big changes over time.

There are few concerns older than that with inequality. It's time to do something about it.

Universities are a key determinant of the earnings power of graduates. But when considering the role universities play in determining the living standards and socially mobility of graduates, it is vital to incorporate the wider impacts of higher education on both other sources of income and non-monetary outcomes.

This presentation was given as the keynote speech at the Copenhagen Business School's launch of their Business in Society Platform on Inequality.

This presentation was given at the launch of the IFS Green Budget 2018.