The COVID-19 crisis has caused drastic changes to most parents’ work lives and other responsibilities. Millions of adults have lost or are forecast to lose their jobs permanently; many more have stopped work temporarily. Others are newly working from home, while many key workers are experiencing additional pressures and risks in their work. For most parents, school and childcare closures have meant that children are at home, and requiring care, for at least an extra six hours a day.
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) covers 80% of employees’ usual salaries, up to a cap of £2,500 a month, while they are furloughed. From August it will also provide support for employees who return from furlough but work reduced hours. This Briefing Note considers the implications of that change and how it might work.
This morning, the ONS published its monthly public finance release for April, giving us an initial snapshot of the public finances under lockdown. It throws the enormous impact of the restrictions on the public finances into sharp relief.
Our research uses up to date real time data from DWP’s Find a Job website to track vacancy levels across all sectors of the economy and regions of the country.
On Tuesday (12 May 2020) the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, announced an extension to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), which covers 80% of employees’ usual salaries, up to a cap of £2,500 a month, while they are furloughed.
This report looks at normal (pre-lockdown) commuting patterns, what they tell us about who would be affected by continued social distancing on public transport, and what they tell us about how policy can ease public transport congestion in a world of continued social distancing.
The coronavirus outbreak and associated containment measures have caused huge economic fallout across the world. The sharp decline in economic activity that is now occurring will depress government revenues and push up public spending. In addition, governments have, appropriately, responded with packages of fiscal measures that will help support households, businesses and public services through these challenging times and limit the long-run damage done by the crisis. But these measures will also have the direct impact of adding considerably more to government borrowing.
This brief addresses the fiscal response to the coronavirus pandemic, arguing that governments could make use of the opportunities this shock provides to make changes to tax systems now that might be politically difficult later.
As a consequence of missing data on tests for infection and imperfect accuracy of tests, reported rates of cumulative population infection by the SARS CoV-2 virus are lower than actual rates of infection.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to unprecedented social distancing measures around the world to contain the spread of the virus. The UK has, like many countries, effectively closed down entire sectors of its economy and severely limited activity in many other sectors. This curtailing of activity is likely to lead to a sharp recession.
We develop a multi-risk SIR model (MR-SIR) where infection, hospitalization and fatality rates vary between groups—in particular between the “young”, “the middle-aged” and the “old”.
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected some sections of the population more than others, and there are growing concerns that the UK’s minority ethnic groups are being disproportionately affected.
The fall in stock markets has reduced the wealth of those who directly hold shares and of those with defined contribution pension pots that are invested in equities.
The coronavirus pandemic, and the measures put in place to combat it, have changed almost everything about how people live their day-to-day lives. More than ever before, life today is being conducted behind the nation’s front doors.