Centre for Research in Social Policy

Record rates of employment and small increases in pay have not halted the increase in the number of those in work living on incomes below what they need, particularly working families with children. In recent years the phrase ‘hard-working families’ has figured prominently both in defining and defending ‘difficult’ policy decisions. The programme of welfare […]

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Our previous study for Thomas Pocklington Trust began to look at the extra costs of living at a minimum acceptable standard for people with sight loss.  It showed how for people of working age, being sight impaired adds around £49 to a minimum weekly budget.  This result was for the case of someone eligible to […]

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I’m not usually one to say I told you so, but it just occurred to me that George Osborne could have saved himself a lot of trouble this year if he’d just paid more attention to my tweets and blogs. In June, two weeks before the summer Budget, as rumours were building that tax credits […]

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Since the election, an important debate has opened up over how far state benefits should be underpinning family living standards.  The government is clearly trying to reduce what it sees as unnecessary dependency, including for families in low-paid work.  It has approached this from multiple angles.  Significantly higher minimum wages and tax allowances will increase […]

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Over the past couple of years there have been lots of stories of families – and 30-somethings more generally – leaving London and moving to the other big cities in the UK because of the high cost of living London.  Our new research sheds light on the pressures felt by families living in the capital. […]

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While many costs associated with living in London are similar to the rest of the UK, a minimum decent standard of living is substantially more expensive in the capital. There is a long held view that life costs more in London. This view is not just confined to the usual suspects of housing, childcare and […]

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Our research into a Minimum Income Standard for London found that a decent standard of living costs up to 50 per cent more in London than it does elsewhere in the country. These figures are based on a comparison of what groups of people in London and in other urban areas of the UK have […]

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In his budget, George Osborne stated that the average household is now enjoying higher living standards than in 2010.  Labour disputes this, saying that this is the first election since the 1920s when living standards are lower than the previous one.  These statements sound like polar opposites, but in fact, there is not a lot […]

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