On this day in 2015, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in a newly elected Conservative Government dramatically announced a National Living Wage designed to ‘make work pay’, while easing the burden on the Exchequer by cutting state support for working families. It’s been a very long five years since this grand plan was launched by […]
Today, the Law Society is publishing my report that asks a simple question about the way people are assessed for eligibility for civil legal aid. Can those denied full legal aid because of their income afford to pay for their own legal advice and services? The criterion for considering affordability is whether such costs can […]
In the past couple of months, I have been talking to people in a fascinating world that most of us are at best vaguely aware of: the world of benevolent charities, who give financial help to eligible individuals in need. Many of these charities are now using our Minimum Income Standard to help them decide […]
The Supreme Court’s landmark judgement abolishing fees for employment tribunals has been rightly hailed for its championing of access to justice for workers, in the context of labour laws having tilted the scales increasingly against them in recent years. It also has much wider implications, including the linking in the judgement of powerlessness at work […]
The past five years have seen ups and downs for wage earners, in terms of average pay keeping up with inflation. After dipping in the recession, real pay started to rise again in 2014. The main beneficiaries were private sector workers, although when inflation hit zero even those affected by the 1% public sector pay […]
Over the past few years, good news about housing, particularly the cost of renting in the private sector, has been in short supply. So it is little surprise that recent figures compiled by Countrywide, suggesting a fall in private rents across the UK, with a significant fall in the capital, were seized upon as representing […]
One in five people aged over 75 experience sight loss. This can be an upsetting experience in itself, but all the more daunting because of the additional cost that it brings to everyday life. When your failing vision means that you have to get help cleaning your house, or use more taxis because getting the […]
I’ve spent much of the last 10 years listening to parents discussing what they think children need. Our Minimum Income Standards research regularly asks groups of parents to agree what is required in a family budget for a minimum acceptable standard of living . As both a researcher and a parent it’s been fascinating to […]
When I started my working life in London in the 1980s, there was some concept that London Weighting was a standard entitlement at a standard level that broadly reflected the additional cost of living in the capital city. Today, it’s become a patchy entitlement at all sorts of levels, but generally not coming close to […]
Today (1 April) sees the introduction of the National Living Wage (NLW): a compulsory £7.20 an hour for over-25s. Some see this as little more than a clever piece of branding by George Osborne a supplement to the National Minimum Wage (NMW), initially set at 50p an hour. Its level today falls well short of […]