Challenges for levelling up

Understand this issue

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

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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

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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

Two-child limit mitigation in Scotland would help larger poor families but policy design could harm work incentives

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Mitigating the two-child limit policy would be an effective way to reduce child poverty, but designing an effective policy is not straightforward. 

14 March 2025

Policy analysis

Which places have the highest standard of living?

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

11 April 2025

How did tax credits transform the UK welfare system?

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Over 20 years since they were introduced, tax credits have now been replaced by universal credit. How did they change the UK welfare system?

4 April 2025

Average annual growth in real household disposable income per capita, by parliament

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Latest OBR forecasts suggest living standards will rise by just 0.6% per year over the current parliament.

1 April 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

Measuring cost of living inequality during an inflation surge

working paper

We provide new evidence that inflation inequality surged during the 2021–2023 cost-of living crisis.

9 May 2025

Estimating intra-household sharing from time-use data

working paper

Estimating intra-household sharing is crucial to understanding overall inequality. However, expenditure data is almost always at the household level.

2 May 2025