In recent Cuts Watch postings we’ve reported on the rapid disappearance of road safety cameras. Figures out today reveal that the price in extra deaths and injuries will be more likely to be paid by the poor.

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   Filed under: Inequality, Transport | 1 Comment »

The latest issue of Social Trends shows that the UK is a very unequal country by European standards – we have levels of inequality that are normally found in the EU’s poorer Mediterranean and Balkan members.

Social Trends provides a comparison for Gini coefficients (the Gini coefficient is a commonly used yardstick, and it measures inequality across the income distribution) in 2007, which is the most recent year for which there is comparable data available. Social Trends provides a comparison for Gini coefficients (the Gini coefficient is a commonly used yardstick, and it measures inequality across the income distribution) in 2007, which is the most recent year for which there is comparable data available. Read more »

   Filed under: Europe, Inequality | 4 Comments »

Today’s Daily Telegraph reports that George Osborne is close to winning agreement that benefits – including “child benefits, disability benefits, housing benefit and unemployment benefit” [Jobseeker's Allowance] – will be frozen for at least a year in the emergency Budget. The freeze, estimated at saving £4.4 billion, will help pay for an amendment to the Capital Gains Tax proposals, to “ensure that ordinary savers who may have bought a second home as an investment for retirement are not treated in the same way as the real targets of the rise, wealthy financiers who use CGT to avoid paying full rates of income tax.” Read more »

   Filed under: Inequality, Social exclusion, Welfare | 2 Comments »

What was the last government’s record on employment for people from disadvantaged groups? What, in particular, has happened during the recession?

An important article by Ruth Barrett in the latest issue of Economic and Labour Market Review (the Office for National Statistics’ on-line magazine) looked at this issue. It measured what has happened to the employment rates of disabled people, lone parents, members of minority ethnic groups, people aged 50 and over, people with low qualifications and people who live in the most deprived local authority wards. Read more »

   Filed under: Equality, Inequality, Labour market, Unemployment | 1 Comment »

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 in poverty – roughly a fifth of the population – are based on those with incomes below 60% of the median ( the mid-point in the income distribution ). Duncan Smith has openly criticised the use of the median , telling the Guardian last month: “You get this constant juddering adjustment with poverty figures going up when, for instance, upper incomes rise”. Frank Field seems to share this view, arguing that the use of the median is essentially self-defeating.  As he has written: “As families are raised above the target level of income, the median point itself rises”. Read more »

   Filed under: Inequality, Social exclusion, Welfare | 1 Comment »

At the start of the month, the Cabinet Office published its “state of the nation report” on Poverty, worklessness and welfare dependency in the United Kingdom. It recognised that poverty is a dynamic and multi-dimensional problem and argued that, despite progress in some areas, “poverty and inequality remain a deeply entrenched problem that blights many families and communities across the UK.”

Back in 2006, Iain Duncan Smith’s think tank, the Centre for Social Justice, published a “State of the nation report”, on Economic Dependency. Read more »

   Filed under: Inequality, Welfare | 3 Comments »

Over the next few years it looks as though it is going to be harder to persuade the government to take the lead in using the tax and benefit system to reduce inequality. Ministers may genuinely want to make progress, but the commitment to cutting spending seems to trump all other considerations.

Obviously, everyone campaigning against poverty will continue to argue the case for redistribution, but there’s work to be done that will have a more immediate effect. Read more »

   Filed under: Earnings, Inequality | 1 Comment »

I was rather surprised that last week’s fuss about employers’ National Insurance Contributions didn’t lead on to a debate about the taxes most voters pay. That has been such a big issue in previous elections I kept on expecting it to start up, but it didn’t happen.

It’s even more surprising because it is a story that leads in unexpected directions. Workers face three main taxes: Income Tax, National Insurance Contributions and Value Added Tax. In this tax year, they will account for a bit over 63% of all taxes and Contributions.

As we all know, the Thatcher revolution saw a big cut in the rates of income tax. Famously, the rates paid by the richest were cut, but so too was the basic rate that most workers pay.

What is less often remembered is that the other two elements of the tax trinity were increased to compensate. The standard rate of VAT was almost doubled overnight and the rate at which National Insurance Contributions are levied on most workers was raised in stages till it was 53% higher than it had been when Mrs Thatcher was elected. Read more »

   Filed under: Economics, Election, Inequality, Tax | 1 Comment »

The Costs of Unemployment is a new TUC report, published today that looks at the costs to individuals and society. We believe that the facts and figures we report lead to a political imperative: all politicians have a duty to make unemployment their first priority. The facts are shocking. To quote just a handful:

• Unemployed people are twice as likely as others to suffer frequent mental distress and twice as likely to suffer short-term depression.
• Unemployment increases the risk of marital dissolution by 70%.
• Unemployed people are twice as likely to be unhappy.
• A 1% increase in unemployment is associated with a 0.79% increase in homicides.
• Unemployed people much more likely to be the victims of crime – and more than twice as likely to be the victims of violent crime.
• The death rate for the children of long-term unemployed parents is thirteen times as high as for the children of whose parents worked in higher managerial or professional occupations. Read more »

   Filed under: Economics, Inequality, Labour market, Politics, Unemployment, Welfare | Comments Off

Unions are the largest voluntary sector organisations in Britain today, with well over six million members in the unions that affiliate to us at the TUC, and 200,000 workplace activists. In workplaces up and down the country, unions are working hard to ensure that people get a voice at work. Much of this never makes headlines or gets the credit it deserves, but the bread and butter work of unions – representing members in disciplinary and grievance cases, negotiating with employers, helping members access new skills and training opportunities, ensuring workplaces are fair and free from discrimination – makes an immeasurable difference to the lives of working people and their families.

Our new ToUChstone pamphlet “The Road to Recovery: How effective unions can help rebuild the economy” highlights some of these benefits to workers, but also identifies the broader economic and social benefits that effective unions bring to Britain’s workplaces. These benefits include better long-term employment relations, reduced staff turnover and a positive impact on the effects of workplace change and innovation. Read more »

   Filed under: Inequality, Recession | Comments Off

You can tell the paleolithic right is feeling frisky when the old nonsense about lone parents starts up again. You know, the rants we used to get from Michael Portillo and others about feckless teenage girls getting themselves pregnant (amazing how they manage it by themselves, but there you go).

Of course, its all the fault of our ludicrously generous benefit system. And who wouldn’t get pregnant when there’s Income Support on offer?

There’s a prime example in today’s Metro that manages to draw the wrong conclusions from an opinion poll the Metro itself commissioned. Read more »

   Filed under: Child poverty, Inequality, Social exclusion, Welfare | 4 Comments »

Last weekend, the Conservatives published a new document on inequality. ‘Labour’s Two Nations‘ lists a wide range of the UK’s social and economic injustices. Among other recent publications, it makes reference to the Marmot Review, highlighting its recent conclusion that:

There are serious inequalities of access to labour market inequalities… many are trapped in a cycle of low-paid poor quality work and unemployment.

The final report of the National Equality Panel, which concluded that levels of inequality in the UK are currently comparable with the period shortly after the Second World War, is also referenced. The implication is that a Conservative Party would do something to reverse these trends, and the report tells us that:

We need a new, progressive government that understands that we can only defeat poverty by tackling its root causes: poor educational attainment, inter-generational worklessness, and family breakdown. Only when we have done so will we able to defeat the scourge of poverty and inequality, and call ourselves one nation again.

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   Filed under: Inequality | Comments Off