The most dramatic change in the 1989 Budget was a major reform of the structure of employee's National Insurance contributions (NICs). This was the second occasion on which Mr Lawson had tackled this area, having last altered the system in 1985. In section II of this article we describe briefly...

Social security systems in developed countries are typically the largest single item of public expenditure, and affect virtually every member of the population at some point, whether through universal benefits to children, benefits to the elderly, benefits for the unemployed or sick, or simply...

In recent years there has been a dramatic growth both in the number of homes being repossessed and in the number of families with substantial mortgage arrears. In 1980 around 3,500 homes were repossessd. In 1990 that figure had risen more than tenfold to 44,000, and it is likely to have risen to...

This paper uses two waves of the UK Retirement Survey to look at how incomes change during retirement. We concentrate on men aged 65-69 and women aged 60-69 in 1988-89 and look at how their incomes change over the following five years. Overall, we find a considerable degree of stability in real...

Until 1988 the Government produced a series of statistics, known as 'Low Income Families' (LIF), every two years. The figures showed the numbers of people receiving supplementary benefit (SB) and the numbers not receiving SB but with incomes either below their SB line or up to 140 per cent of...