Posted on June 18th, 2010 by Stewart Lansley
Behind the high profile appointment of Frank Field to review Government poverty policy seems to be a hidden agenda – the redefinition of poverty in absolute rather than relative terms. Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has more than hinted that he would prefer the adoption of an absolute definition. The official numbers [...]
Filed under: Inequality, Social exclusion, Welfare | 1 Comment »
Posted on November 12th, 2009 by Stewart Lansley
Rising personal debt, global imbalances, excessive bank leveraging and reckless financial risk-taking all played a key part in the current economic meltdown. But there is another factor that has been largely ignored – the role of wages which I explore in the first Touchstone Extra – Unfair to Middling: How Middle Income Britain’s Shrinking Wages [...]
Filed under: Earnings, Economics, Financial crisis, Middle Britain | 2 Comments »
Posted on September 6th, 2009 by Stewart Lansley
In the ToUChstone pamphlet, Life in the Middle, I argued that the term ‘middle Britain’ has come to be commonly used by the political and media classes to describe a group that sits in the upper half of the income distribution. Indeed ‘middle Britain’ has increasingly become shorthand for the professional middle classes. Yet an [...]
Filed under: Earnings, Inequality, Middle Britain | 1 Comment »
