Downloads

wp1212.pdf
PDF | 2.72 MB
This paper compares consumption and income as measures of households’ living standards using UK data. It presents evidence that income is likely to be under-recorded for households with low resources. It describes the different impressions one gets about trends in the level and inequality of living standards in the UK when using consumption, and when one adds an imputed income from housing, rather than near-cash income. It describes what different impressions one gets about the composition of households with low living standards if these are identified with consumption rather than income.
Authors

Mike Brewer

Research Associate Yale University
Cormac is a Research Associate of the IFS, an Assistant Professor of Economics at the Yale University and Research Fellow at the NBER.
Working Paper details
- DOI
- 10.1920/wp.ifs.2012.1212
- Publisher
- IFS
Suggested citation
Brewer, M and O'Dea, C. (2012). Measuring living standards with income and consumption: evidence from the UK. London: IFS. Available at: https://ifs.org.uk/publications/measuring-living-standards-income-and-consumption-evidence-uk-1 (accessed: 14 February 2025).
More from IFS
Understand this issue

How to reduce child poverty: compare the policy options
Use these charts to compare policies for reducing child poverty and to examine how child poverty rates have changed over time across different groups.
3 October 2024

How can government reduce child poverty?
We're exploring why there's been an increase in child poverty since 2010 and options the government has to reduce this.
3 October 2024

Professor Sir Richard Blundell to give the Marshall Paley Lecture on inequalities
27 September 2024
Policy analysis

How should governments help households during an energy crisis?
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

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

Exposure to air pollution in England, 2003–23
We set out how air pollution (PM2.5) has changed across England and explore inequalities by ethnicity, income deprivation, region and age.
6 December 2024
Academic research

The welfare effects of price shocks and household relief packages: Evidence from the European Energy Crisis
How should governments respond to rapid increases in the cost of living driven by shocks to the prices of staple goods?
31 January 2025

Health inequality and health types
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

Education and inequality: an international perspective
We study whether educational expansion is effective for reducing inequality and why some educational systems are associated more with lower inequality
2 October 2024