The UK Universal Credit (UC) welfare reform simplified the benefits system whilst strongly incentivising a return to sustainable employment. Exploiting a staggered roll-out, we estimate the differential effect of entering unemployment under UC versus the former system on mental health. Groups...

This chapter brings together trends in inequalities in income, wealth and, to a limited extent, consumption in the United Kingdom, with a focus on trends until the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper uses British panel data to investigate single women’s labour supply changes in response to three tax and benefit policy reforms that occurred in the 1990s. These reforms changed individuals' work incentives and we use them to identify changes in labour supply. We find evidence of...

This paper reviews how income-support systems affect labour force participation in the UK. The UK's approach to social insurance is basic security, with modest, typically flat-rate, benefits; insurance-based benefits are relatively unimportant. Compared with the EU, the UK has high employment...

This paper presents a tour of welfare reforms in the UK since the last change of government, summarising the most important changes in active labour market policies (ALMPS), and in measures intended to strengthen financial incentives to work. It argues that developments in the UK's active labour...

As a result of the Child Poverty Act (2010), current and future governments are committed to reducing the rate of relative income child poverty in the UK to 10% by 2020-21. This paper looks in detail at the progress made towards this goal under the previous Labour administrations. Direct tax and...

In 1999 the UK government made major reforms to the system of child-contingent benefits, including the introduction of Working Families' Tax Credit and an increase in means-tested Income Support for families with children. Between 1999-2003 government spending per-child on these benefits rose by...

Childcare costs are often viewed as one of the biggest barriers to work, particularly among lone parents on low incomes. Children in England are typically eligible to start school - and thus access a number of hours of free public education - on 1 September after they turn four. This means that...

This study uses the first twelve waves of the British Household Panel Survey covering the period 1991-2002 to investigate the extent of constraints on desired hours of work within jobs and the degree of flexibility of the labour market for a sample of women. Our main findings are as follows....

The UK's Labour Government has expanded means-testing of social security but attempted to do so while minimising the disincentive effects typically associated with such an approach. We test whether it has succeeded by reviewing the effect of 5 years of reforms on a range of incentives across the...