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...

The goals of income transfer systems in the US and the UK for low-income families are to reduce poverty and welfare dependency and encourage work. Both the US and UK have made in-work benefits a key part of their strategy through the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Working Families' Tax...

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...

Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is a disability benefit that aims to support individuals facing higher living costs due to difficulties in mobility or carrying out everyday tasks. In summer 2021, each month 15,000 or so working-age people started a PIP claim. That monthly figure had remained...

Policy-makers have increasingly turned to 'in-work transfers' to boost incomes among poorer workers and strengthen work incentives. One attraction of these is that labour supply elasticities are typically greatest at the extensive margin. Because in-work transfers are normally subject to...

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 review the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on inequalities in education, the labor market, household living standards, mental health, and wealth in the United Kingdom. The pandemic has pushed up inequalities on several dimensions. School closures, in particular, disrupted the learning of...