The 2016 Budget included a policy designed to help low-income working families, known as ‘Help to Save’. This observation examines whether the policy is likely to help those who are not currently saving enough and to encourage them to save more, or is instead an opportunity for those who already have savings (or would save anyway) to receive a government subsidy.
Many things determine our living standards. Most important is what goes on in the labour market. In the end, levels of employment and earnings matter more than anything. Then there are the taxes and social security benefits set each year by the chancellor. The consequences of all these for households, and in particular the distributional consequences, are pored over in great detail.
Event
19 July 2016 at 11:00<p>Store Street, London, WC1E 7BT</p>
On Tuesday 19 July, the IFS will publish its detailed annual report on living standards, poverty and inequality in the UK, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
We all know about differences between children from rich, poor and middle-income families. Or at least we think we do. But new research that we have undertaken at the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that these differences have changed dramatically. In terms of their sources of income and rates of home-ownership, middle-income families look much more like poorer families, and much less like high-income families, than they used to.
We evaluate the large-scale pilot program of an innovative and major welfare inter- vention in Colombia, which combines home visits by trained social workers to households in extreme poverty with preferential access to social programs.
Event
16 July 2015 at 11:00<p>Store Street, London, WC1E 7BT</p>
On Thursday 16 July, the IFS will publish its detailed annual report on living standards, poverty and inequality in the UK, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
