This briefing note describes the state pension age increases that have been legislated by various governments in recent decades, and discusses how they relate to improvements in life expectancies and how spending on state pensions is projected to evolve as a result.
The 2010s saw big cuts to councils’ funding and spending, and while these may be over, rising costs and demands will mean further budget pressures. This report looks backwards and forwards at funding levels and reforms.
Whether the UK leaves the European Union, and if so on what terms, is a crucial issue andtherefore rightly should be the subject of much debate in the run-up to the generalelection on 12 December.
Funding the National Health Service is now the biggest single thing the government does. So how has health spending has changed over the last 70 years?
While those born between the 1930s and 1950s have seen generation-on-generation increases in wealth levels, those born more recently look to have accumulated no more wealth than their predecessors had done by the same age. This has prompted concerns, and debate as to whether later-born generations are just frivolous with their money or have faced a harsher economic environment that is less conducive to accumulating wealth.
In this short briefing note, we look at how earnings have changed over the last 11 years, how that differs when looking at hourly and weekly pay, and how different groups have seen different trends.
The IFS Green Budget 2019, in association with Citi and the Nuffield Foundation, is edited by Carl Emmerson, Christine Farquharson and Paul Johnson, and copy-edited by Judith Payne. The report looks at the issues and challenges facing Chancellor Sajid Javid as he prepares for his first Budget.
Soft drink taxes have been implemented in 50 jurisdictions (as of August 2019). We review the evidence on their effects, summarising 27 studies of taxes in 11 jurisdictions.
Education spending is the second-largest element of public service spending in the UK behind health, representing about £91 billion in 2018–19 in today’s prices or about 4.2% of national income.
This Wednesday the Chancellor will allocate funding to departments for the next financial year, 2020-2021. This departmental spending (DEL) is £375 billion this year.
This study is among the first to rigorously demonstrate potential of life skills interventions to change key outcomes of adolescent girls living in contexts where girls and women continue to be caught in a vicious cycle of low levels of human capital, low labour force participation rate, low wages, low bargaining power within the household, early marriage and high fertility.
The richest members of our society get a lot of attention. Much of the public conversation about economic inequality is concerned with, loosely, the top 1%, how different they are from the rest, how they got to where they are, and what – if anything – policy should do about it. This briefing note uses data from HMRC’s income tax records to document some key facts about the highest-income people in the country.
The UK raised 35% of national income in tax in 2018–19. Figure 1 shows that tax as a share of national income has fluctuated between around 30% and 35% of national income since the end of the second world war and been rising since the early 1990s. Tax revenues are now, just, higher as a share of national income than at any point since the late 1960s.
We have established a new partnership between academics, local government and early years practitioners to develop, implement and evaluate a home-visiting programme for parents with very young children in England. In this feasibility study, we research local priorities and existing services to evaluate the need for a new early childhood intervention in England.
Business owners have been the fastest-growing part of the UK labour force since at least 2000. Between 2000–01 and 2015–16, the number of employees grew by 15%, while self-employment (including those operating as a sole trader or as a partner in a partnership) grew by 25% and the number of directors of companies with at most two directors more than doubled. The number of new businesses created in the UK between 2007–08 and 2015–16 was higher than in any other OECD country.
This briefing note discusses the consequences of Jeremy Hunt's tax and spending policies, including reducing corporation tax, increasing the point at which workers become liable for National Insurance (NICs) contributions, increasing defence spending, and reducing the interest rate applied to student debt.
This briefing note discusses the consequences of Boris Johnson's tax policies, which age groups gain, and what the impact might be on the number of people that pay higher rate tax or NICs.
This report examines how living standards – most commonly measured by households’ incomes – have changed for different groups in the UK, and the consequences that these changes have for income inequality and for measures of deprivation and poverty. In this latest report, we focus in particular on those people who are poorest in society.
