IFS Zooms In: The Economy

Inflation has fallen a long way from its peak - but many people still feel worse off, and price rises have remained stubbornly above the Bank of England’s 2% target. So what actually caused the big inflation spike, how close are we to “normal”, and what does that mean for households?

Helen is joined by David Miles (OBR and former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee) and Peter Levell (IFS) to break down the basics: what inflation is, why central banks target 2% rather than 0%, and what drove prices up so sharply in recent years.

We also dig into who inflation hits hardest, how much of the cost-of-living crisis is really about inflation, and why the Bank raises interest rates even though it can make life feel tougher in the short run.

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The UK minimum wage is one of the biggest economic policy changes of the past few decades. Introduced in 1999 at £3.60 an hour, it’s now over £12 and it shapes pay for a large share of the workforce. But what has it done to jobs? And if firms pay higher wages, where does the money come from - higher prices, lower profits, or higher productivity?

In this episode, Helen is joined by Eduin Latimer (IFS) and Professor Alan Manning (LSE) to unpack what we do and don’t know about the minimum wage. We look at the evidence on employment effects, the knock-on impacts on pay compression, and whether the current minimum wage is set too high. Finally, we look ahead to the government’s ambitions, including faster rises for younger workers, and the trade-offs involved.

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The NHS holds a unique place in British life: a source of national pride, and the single biggest public service in England. This year it’s set to cost over £200 billion, around £3,500 per person, more than we spend on education, defence, justice and transport combined. And yet, despite sustained funding increases and around a quarter of a million more staff than in 2019, concerns about performance haven’t gone away.

Labour came into office promising to get a grip on record waiting times, but progress so far looks limited. The waiting list stands at 7.3 million, only slightly down from around 7.6 million when the government took office a year and a half ago. With winter pressures, flu surges, and resident doctors taking strike action, it raises a big question: what’s actually going on inside the system, and is improvement realistically on the horizon?

In this episode, Helen is joined by IFS colleagues Olly Harvey-Rich and Max Warner to unpack the data and the trade-offs. We look at winter pressures and capacity, what the latest performance metrics tell us, and the real constraints facing the NHS in England - money, productivity and system design. Finally, we look ahead to the rest of the parliament: should we be hopeful about meaningful change, or are the obstacles bigger than the plans?

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Moving into 2026, the government faces a critical period of delivery. After 18 months in power and several major fiscal events behind them, the focus is shifting from setting policy to seeing it through. However, with unemployment reaching 5.1% and a series of high-stakes reviews underway, the road ahead remains complex.

In this episode, we are joined by Christine Farquharson and Tom Waters to examine the economic landscape for the year ahead. We look at the rising pressures on the public purse, from health-related benefits to the "national conversation" on SEND, and ask what the upcoming fiscal events might reveal about the government’s long-term strategy. We also look at what could shift the outlook, for better or worse, from public sector productivity to the economic impact of new technologies like AI and GLP-1 drugs.

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As ever the big-picture choices in the Budget dominated media coverage - but some of the most interesting changes were buried in the detail. From electric vehicles to tourist tax, how much do these quieter tax shifts really matter?

In this episode, we dig into the lesser-noticed policies: why the government is offering upfront EV grants while planning a per-mile tax, how tweaks to salary sacrifice and cash ISAs could shape saving behaviour, and what the changes to EIS and EMI mean for investment and entrepreneurship.

Joining Helen are Stuart Adam and Ben Zaranko from the IFS to break down what’s changed, why it matters, and what the “devil in the detail” tells us about the government’s tax strategy.

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Find out more: https://ifs.org.uk/podcasts-explainers-and-calculators/podcasts
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