The Poverty Trade-Off: Work incentives and income redistribution in Britain

Two strategies that governments have to help people on low incomes, providing them with financial support directly, and encouraging them to earn more, generally conflict. This event launches a new report by IFS researchers, The Poverty Trade-Off: Work incentives and income redistribution in Britain, which provides new evidence on the trade-off between redistributing income and improving work incentives. Funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the report:

• shows how work incentives vary across the population and how this has changed since 1979;
• estimates how far tax and benefit reforms have been responsible for changes in work incentives;
• compares these trends with trends in poverty and inequality;
• examines how various policy options for the future would affect the distributions of both income and work incentives.