What is ‘levelling up’ and how much progress has been made?

Understand this issue

Average household consumption spending before and after housing costs, and mean weekly per-capita income, in different local authorities, 2018–2019

data item

Londoners may have the highest average incomes, but their household spending once you account for housing costs is lower than other regions.

11 April 2025

Rank of local authorities by average household income compared to rank by average consumption after housing costs

data item

On average, London local authorities rank at the top of the income distribution, but are bottom of the net-of-housing consumption distribution.

11 April 2025

Professor Sir Richard Blundell to give the Marshall Paley Lecture on inequalities

announcement

Professor Sir Richard Blundell will give the lecture on the first phase of the IFS Deaton Review, recently published by Oxford University Press.

27 September 2024

Policy analysis

How should governments help households during an energy crisis?

comment

The government spent billions on support to help households with their energy bills in 2022–23. Could a better-designed package have saved money?

31 January 2025

Which places have the highest standard of living?

comment

Measuring living standards using average household spending gives a starkly different picture of regional inequalities than using average income.

11 April 2025

Share of 25- to 34-year-olds living with parents up by over a third since the mid 2000s

press release

The rise in people living with their parents has been concentrated among those in their late 20s and varies substantially by ethnicity.

11 January 2025

Academic research

Small area consumption estimates for local authorities in Great Britain

working paper

In this paper, we estimate average equivalised consumption measures across local authority districts in Great Britain.

11 April 2025

Health inequality and health types

working paper

We use k-means clustering, a machine learning technique, and Health and Retirement Study data to identify health types during middle and old age.

3 October 2024

Changing inequalities in Europe and North America: part two

journal article

This special issue is the second in a two-part series on the evolution of labour market and disposable income inequalities over recent decades.

2 October 2024