Resolution Foundation Events Podcast

• Delivering the undeliverable: Reforming incapacity and disability benefits to make the system work

  Britain is becoming sicker, with a sustained increase in levels of ill-health and disability. This creates financial challenges for families, and a fiscal challenge for the Government, with spending on incapacity and disability benefits forecast to rise from £40 billion today to £60 billion by the end of the Parliament. Everyone agrees that the current system is not working. But no-one can agree on how to change it. The Government will need to break that stalemate in its upcoming Green Paper.

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• Unpredictable earnings: The volatility of pay packets and its impact on living standards

  Most people are used to receiving regular monthly pay cheques, hopefully with the occasional bonus and an annual rise. But while this is often taken for granted, for other workers the size and timing of their pay cheques are far more volatile – with knock on effects on their ability to pay bills, save, plan ahead and smooth their living standards over time. But with Brits notoriously adverse to talking about pay, the scale of earnings volatility across the country is unknown.

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• Tackling the scourge of modern Britain: The policies and investment needed to reduce child poverty

  The new Government is currently preparing a child poverty strategy, and hoping to emulate the success of the last Labour government, which lifted over half a million children out of poverty over its first five years. This ambition is needed too, because unless action is taken, poverty rates are expected to rise over the course of the parliament. But Britain in the mid-2020s is very different to the late-1990s – a new approach will be needed to lift children out of poverty over the next decade. What reduced child poverty in the late-1990s and 2000s, and to what extent can that approach be repeated today? What is the role of work, housing, and social security in lifting families above the poverty line? How much might it cost to deliver a successful child poverty strategy? And what are the costs of not doing so?

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• No place like home? The cost and conditions of housing for ethnic minority households

  In recent decades the UK has become an increasingly diverse country. And yet, persistent and significant ethnic inequalities remain. While the jobs and pay gaps experienced by those from an ethnic minority are becoming better understood, the key living standards question of housing affordability is still under-discussed. With even higher-income ethnic minority groups spending a greater share of their budgets on keeping a roof over their heads compared to White British households, the puzzle of why they are paying more for their housing remains unsolved. How much of the housing affordability gap can be explained by age, tenure and location? How do housing conditions differ between ethnic minority groups? How do these inequalities feed into the country’s wider housing crisis? And what can policy do to ensure the most disadvantaged groups benefit from improvements to Britain’s housing stock?  Speakers: Florence Eshalomi MP, Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee Kwajo Tweneboa, Social issues campaigner Camron Aref-Adib, Researcher at the Resolution Foundation Ruth Curtice, Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation (Chair)

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• The jittersbug: How worrying data and market unrest could affect Britain’s economic outlook

  How worrying data and market unrest could affect Britain’s economic outlook.   Government debt markets across the world are having a jittery start to 2025, and the UK is one of the most affected economies with gilt yields volatile amid concerns about stagflation, though they have started to fall back in recent weeks. While these movements pass most people by, they can have a material impact on their living standards. For policy makers, a deteriorating economic outlook may need to be confronted too – either through a changed path for interest rates, or tough choices on tax and spend.    Speakers: Katharine Neiss, Deputy Head of Global Economics at PGIM Fixed Income Mohamed El-Erian, President of Queens’ College, Cambridge University James Smith, Research Director at the Resolution Foundation Ruth Curtice, Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation (Chair)    

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