Newspaper articles
Articles in newspapers and magazines written by IFS staff.
Newspaper article
'The pandemic has shown us the power of the state to intervene in hitherto unimaginable ways in supporting employees. But it has also shown us that the self-employed remain something of an inconvenient afterthought.'
Newspaper article
'A year ago, there was every indication the pandemic would widen inequalities in employment and earnings between old and young, whites and ethnic minorities, men and women. That now looks less likely.'
Newspaper article
'The real problem is that spending can happily grow at 3 per cent a year if the economy is also growing at 3 per cent a year. It isn’t and it won’t, not least because of the chilling effect that Brexit will continue to have.'
Newspaper article
"Both government funding decisions over the past decade and the structure of council tax have worked against “levelling up”." Paul Johnson in The Times on local government funding.
Newspaper article
"When economic inequalities start to undermine our sense of equal citizenship, as they seem to have done in the UK, then the need for action becomes urgent."
Newspaper article
Our social care system is the unfinished business of 1946 and the direct descendant of the poor law of 1834; the decision to fund it through a levy is a throwback to a time when we had a social insurance system. And that’s the trouble. If you want a rational system for tax, welfare and public ...
Newspaper article
Taxes are often the subject of debate; that is as it should be. But those debates need to be well-informed to produce sensible policy outcomes.
Newspaper article
"Please government, stop putting good, professional, public servants in an almost impossible situation by forcing them to choose between two incompatible versions of doing the right thing." Paul Johnson in The Times.
Newspaper article
"We’ll know we are on the way to levelling up when differences in health and life expectancy across the country start to drop. Sadly, that’s one measure of inequality that has clearly been moving in the wrong direction over the past decade." Paul Johnson writes for The Times on levelling up.
Newspaper article
But for a majority, families provide vital support when times get tough. The welfare state could not begin to operate without the care we provide for elderly parents, for disabled spouses, for sick children, as well as the financial support we provide each other when things go wrong.