This report examines how household incomes were changing in the UK up to the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic, and how other measures of household living standards have changed over the course of the pandemic. In particular, we use the latest official data covering years up to 2019-20 to provide a...

This report examines how material 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. This is the 22nd annual report...

We investigate how living standards have changed for different groups in the UK, with a particular focus on the cost of living payments and housing.

The recent surge in inflation, driven by spectacular increases in energy prices, has driven sharp falls in household living standards, huge government intervention to try to mitigate it, and serious policy headaches. As such it continues to be the backdrop behind many of the most pressing issues...

We estimate the effect of the introduction of the UK's National Living Wage in 2016, and increases in it up to 2019, using a new empirical method. We apply a bunching approach to a setting with no geographical variation in minimum wage rates. We effectively compare employment changes in each...

We review the effects on the Covid-19 pandemic on inequalities in education, the labour market, household living standards, mental health, and wealth in the UK. The pandemic has pushed up inequalities on several dimensions. School closures particular disrupted the learning of poorer children,...

We study earnings and income inequality in Britain over the 25 years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. We focus on the middle 90% of the income distribution, within which the gap between top and bottom in 2019-20 was essentially the same as a quarter-century earlier. We show that this apparent...

Many families have little or no savings to access on a 'rainy day'. We examine the types of families with low savings and what the consequences are.