The recent surge in inflation, driven by spectacular increases in energy prices, has driven sharp falls in household living standards, huge government intervention to try to mitigate it, and serious policy headaches. As such it continues to be the backdrop behind many of the most pressing issues...

Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is a disability benefit that aims to support individuals facing higher living costs due to difficulties in mobility or carrying out everyday tasks. In summer 2021, each month 15,000 or so working-age people started a PIP claim. That monthly figure had remained...

It has been a tough few years for labour market statistics. The COVID-19 pandemic made the collection and interpretation of data on jobs and pay extremely challenging. Many surveys found it harder to reach respondents. Those that relied on face-to-face interviewing had to switch to telephone or...

This report compares and contrasts the economic circumstances of individuals born between the 1940s and the 1970s, currently ages between their mid-30s and mid-70s. In doing so, it aims to provide a sense of the likely economic position of the younger cohorts in later life, in absolute terms and...

Council tax benefit (CTB) was abolished in April 2013 and local authorities in England were charged with designing their own council tax support (CTS) schemes in its place. Although these must maintain support for pensioners at its previous level, local authorities have had wide discretion to...

How have household incomes evolved since the onset of the financial crisis? How has the gap between rich and poor changed? How have living standards changed over time for different parts of the population? How many people are in poverty and which groups are most likely to face poverty? Each...

This report examines changes in the distribution of household incomes in the UK, and the determinants and consequences of recent trends. This includes analysing not only changes in average living standards, but also inequality in household incomes and measures of income poverty and deprivation....

The "affordability" of housing is one of the most prominent domestic public policy issues of the day, and for good reason. The housing that people are in is an important determinant of their well-being, and it is something on which people - especially those on lower incomes - typically spend a...

It is now around a decade since the financial crisis that triggered the Great Recession of 2008-09. In many respects, the impacts of this recession on the living standards of UK households have been unusually severe. Median household income is now around 15% below its long-run trend, having...