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Articles by Pascale Bourquin
The UK finally had good household income growth in 2019–20, and then the pandemic hit -
Today, the Department for Work and Pensions released the latest official statistics on household incomes, poverty, and income inequality. The latest data covers the year 2019–20, and thus provides us with a snapshot of people’s incomes right up to the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Inheritances and inequality over the life cycle: what will they mean for younger generations? -
Inheritances have been growing as a share of national income in the UK since the 1970s. This trend looks set to continue as generations at older ages hold more wealth than their immediate predecessors but younger generations have no higher incomes than the generations born just before them. What will this mean for inequalities in living standards and wealth? Does the growth in inheritances mean people’s living standards will increasingly be determined by who their parents are?
IFS Green Budget 2020 -
The IFS Green Budget 2020 is produced in association with Citi and with funding from the Nuffield Foundation. It analyses the huge economic trauma since the March Budget, the much heightened uncertainty over the path of the economy in coming years, and the big decisions confronting Chancellor Rishi Sunak as he continues to decide how policy should respond to support households, business and public services in the coming year and beyond.
The temporary benefit increases beyond 2020-21 -
The COVID-19 crisis has led to a profound shock to the labour market, one consequence of which is a rising number of claimants of means-tested benefits and higher entitlements among existing claimants. Under its central scenario, the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that these effects will raise benefit spending by £25 billion in 2020–21; even its optimistic scenario puts the figure at £17 billion.
Inherited wealth on course to be a much more important determinant of lifetime resources for today’s young than it was for previous generations -
Recent decades have seen rising wealth-to-income ratios. In England, increases in wealth have been concentrated among older generations. Those born in the 1980s have accumulated no more wealth than those born in the 1970s had done by the same age, but the parents of those born in the 1980s hold 40% more wealth than the parents of those born in the 1970s held at the same age.
Inheritances and inequality within generations -
This report examines the inheritances that are likely to be received by those living in England who were born in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. We explore the age at which inheritances are likely to be received and the amounts that we expect to be inherited, focusing on key inequalities in each. All figures are in 2017–18 prices.
The effects of coronavirus on household finances and financial distress -
The effect of the COVID-19 crisis on the economy has been huge. National income fell by 20% in April, to a level last seen in the early 2000s. But the impact of this vast aggregate shock on the finances of different households will vary widely. In this report, we use a novel source of real-time data on households’ finances from Money Dashboard, a budgeting app, to explore the impacts of the crisis so far on earnings, incomes and financial distress, and how they are evolving.
Living standards, poverty and inequality in the UK: 2020 -
This report examines how living standards – most commonly measured by households’ incomes – were changing in the UK up to approximately the eve of the current COVID-19 crisis, using the latest official household income data covering years up to 2018–19. We particularly focus on how this differed for different groups, and what this meant for poverty and inequality.
Automatic enrolment - too successful a nudge to boost pension saving? -
Automatic enrolment has been hugely successful, such that over 90% of eligible private sector workers are now members of workplace pension schemes. Given they started furthest behind in terms of pension provision, it is not surprising that the biggest increases in coverage were for the young, the low-paid and the financially insecure.
Lots more employees have a pension and they expect to retire later -
The last decade saw substantial reforms to the UK retirement savings environment, including obliging private sector employers to enrol most employees into a workplace pension and the implementation of the first ever increases in the UK state pension age. Since 2012, when automatic enrolment was first introduced, the young, those on lower wages and with lower education, and those in rented accommodation have seen especially big increases in workplace pension membership.
Living standards, poverty and inequality: summary of the latest data, for 2018–19 -
The public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to reduce household incomes as workers lose their jobs, earnings fall, and plummeting share prices and interest rates lead to lower incomes from savings and investments.
Why has in-work poverty risen in Britain? -
We examine the reason for the increased in-work relative poverty rate in Britain over the last 25 years, which has risen by almost 5 percentage points from 13% to 18%. We identify two reasons that are actually due to positive trends in British society: the catch up of pensioner incomes (driven by higher state and private pensions), and falls in worklessness bringing low earning types of households (such as lone parents) into work.
Living standards, poverty and inequality in the UK: 2019 -
This report examines how 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. In this latest report, we focus in particular on those people who are poorest in society, with two of our three main chapters focusing on poverty.
How has stalling income growth affected different parts of the population? -
Between 2011–12 and 2016–17, median incomes grew at a rate of 1.6% a year – faster than the 1.2% growth rate seen immediately before the recession (2002–03 to 2007–08). However, median household income growth stalled in 2017–18, making it only the fourth year (and second non-recession year) in the last 30 where median income did not grow (Figure 1).
Living standards and income inequality -
This chapter analyses trends in average incomes and income inequality between UK individuals. We also explore the determinants of trends in income growth and how they have evolved over time, on average and for different groups. We use the Households Below Average Income (HBAI) data, the latest version of which covers the financial year 2017–18, to document these trends in recent years. For the analysis of the labour market, we supplement our HBAI analysis with the Labour Force Survey (LFS).
The effect of taxes and benefits on UK inequality -
Key findings Benefits reduce UK income inequality more than direct taxes do. Before redistribution, the highest-income fifth of individuals, on average, has an income that is 12 times as large as the poorest fifth. Adding all cash benefits and deducting direct taxes (including income and council taxes as well as employer and employee National Insurance contributions) brings this figure down to 5. Benefits account for around 80% of this reduction, while direct taxes account for 20%.
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