This paper examines the impact of the UK housing benefit system on the financial returns to employment of people in local authority or Housing Association accommodation. It outlines the current structure of housing benefit and examines its effects on the returns to employment using data from the...

From the middle of the 1980s until the end of that decade, the government experienced a growing economy and consequently buoyant tax revenues. In addition to cutting the public sector borrowing requirement (PSBR) and increasing spending, these revenues were used as a means of financing massive...

Building on previous work, this paper documents the changes in income inequality that have occurred over the past 20 years, right up until the late 1990s. In particular, we are interested in whether or not the path of inequality in the most recent economic cycle differed from that observed in...

The government’s report, Opportunity for All: Tackling Poverty and Social Exclusion (Department of Social Security, 1999), identified poor health as one of the major problems associated with low income. However, much of the available evidence on the relationship between income and health is of...

The tax system in the UK has developed through numerous ad hoc changes to its structure. This has resulted in a situation where the way in which the tax system is described does not readily correspond to the marginal rate schedule actually faced by taxpayers. This paper outlines the connection...

In October 1999, the working families’ tax credit (WFTC) replaced family credit as the main package of in-work support for families with children. Among a range of stated aims, the WFTC is intended to ‘... improve work incentives, encouraging people without work to move into employment’....

In the ten year period of Mrs Thatcher's government, and especially over the last few years, there have been many changes to the tax and benefit system. In this short article we show how these changes have affected households in the UK. We performed a similar exercise in 1986, but htis was...