a column by Richard Akresh, Daniel Halim and Marieke Kleemans for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
Does investment in schools promote higher educational attainment—and do the effects improve students’ later lives and those of the next generation?
This column examines the impact of over 61,000 primary schools built by the Indonesian government between 1973 and 1979, almost doubling the number in the country. The evidence shows that the men and women who accessed education provided by the construction programme benefited from significant improvements in their educational and later life outcomes. So too did their children.
Continue reading
Showing posts with label living_standards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label living_standards. Show all posts
Tuesday, 21 May 2019
Tuesday, 2 April 2019
Last year saw living standards stagnate and poverty rise
a post by Adm Corlett for the Resolution Foundation blog
It may go unnoticed amid the current political turmoil, but today we learnt a lot about the recent state of Britain via the publication of official statistics on incomes, poverty and inequality. We already know how the economy and labour market have performed over recent years, but today’s stats give us much more information about how this all fed through into households’ living standards in 2017-18. And the results are concerning.
Typical incomes stagnated
2017-18 was a year in which average prices rose by around 3 per cent – faster than most earnings, benefits or other income. As a result, typical household incomes fell by around 0.2 per cent in real terms. This fall is similar to separate ONS stats released last month, and our own income projections.
Continue reading
It may go unnoticed amid the current political turmoil, but today we learnt a lot about the recent state of Britain via the publication of official statistics on incomes, poverty and inequality. We already know how the economy and labour market have performed over recent years, but today’s stats give us much more information about how this all fed through into households’ living standards in 2017-18. And the results are concerning.
Typical incomes stagnated
2017-18 was a year in which average prices rose by around 3 per cent – faster than most earnings, benefits or other income. As a result, typical household incomes fell by around 0.2 per cent in real terms. This fall is similar to separate ONS stats released last month, and our own income projections.
Continue reading
Sunday, 3 December 2017
Is the growth in living standards worse now than in the Great Depression?
an article by Larry Elliott published in the Guardian
New data suggests life is getting tougher now for working-age adults than in the lost decade of the 1930s
The Jarrow March, forever a symbol of the grim economic times of the 1930s. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images
The 1930s are the benchmark when it comes to lost decades. There are recessions and deep recessions, but then there is the Great Depression. In terms of sustained misery, nothing remotely comes close to the 10-year period that followed the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
Yet in one respect – growth in living standards – the performance of the UK since the financial crisis began in 2007 has been worse than it was in the era that included coming off the Gold Standard, the formation of the National Government and the Jarrow March.
Data from the House of Commons library obtained by the Labour MP Liam Byrne illustrates the point. In both cases, there was a similar-sized contraction of the economy lasting two years, but the subsequent recovery in the 1930s was faster than it has been since 2007.
Continue reading
New data suggests life is getting tougher now for working-age adults than in the lost decade of the 1930s
The Jarrow March, forever a symbol of the grim economic times of the 1930s. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images
The 1930s are the benchmark when it comes to lost decades. There are recessions and deep recessions, but then there is the Great Depression. In terms of sustained misery, nothing remotely comes close to the 10-year period that followed the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
Yet in one respect – growth in living standards – the performance of the UK since the financial crisis began in 2007 has been worse than it was in the era that included coming off the Gold Standard, the formation of the National Government and the Jarrow March.
Data from the House of Commons library obtained by the Labour MP Liam Byrne illustrates the point. In both cases, there was a similar-sized contraction of the economy lasting two years, but the subsequent recovery in the 1930s was faster than it has been since 2007.
Continue reading
Wednesday, 12 April 2017
Controversies around inflation measurement: Have annual real wages fallen by £2,100 or £1,200 or £800?
via Touchstone Blog from the TUC by Geoff Tily in Economics
Whatever way you look at it, this week’s [week of 22 March] inflation figures illustrate the threat to living standards that result from the fall in sterling after the referendum.Whatever way you look at it, this week’s inflation figures illustrate the threat to living standards that result from the fall in sterling after the referendum.
Headline inflation in February rose to 2.3%. Last week’s average earnings data for January (regular pay) was 2.3%. Real earnings growth is therefore zero. If as is likely inflation continues to rise and earnings growth continues to fall, once more pay growth will fall behind rises in the costs of living. ‘Once more’, because of course ever since the financial crisis this has been the norm.
But the story is complicated by the ONS leading on a new measure of ‘CPIH’ inflation rather than CPI inflation.
Continue reading
Whatever way you look at it, this week’s [week of 22 March] inflation figures illustrate the threat to living standards that result from the fall in sterling after the referendum.Whatever way you look at it, this week’s inflation figures illustrate the threat to living standards that result from the fall in sterling after the referendum.
Headline inflation in February rose to 2.3%. Last week’s average earnings data for January (regular pay) was 2.3%. Real earnings growth is therefore zero. If as is likely inflation continues to rise and earnings growth continues to fall, once more pay growth will fall behind rises in the costs of living. ‘Once more’, because of course ever since the financial crisis this has been the norm.
But the story is complicated by the ONS leading on a new measure of ‘CPIH’ inflation rather than CPI inflation.
Continue reading
Thursday, 5 January 2017
Who is feeling the fullest force of the housing crisis?
from the Resolution Foundation by Lindsay Judge
We’ve written recently about how rising housing costs are acting as a headwind, holding back improvements in living standards for many households in the UK today. But who is feeling the fullest force of the housing crisis? Which types of households are most likely to be living in unaffordable housing today and how has this changed over the last 20 years?
Continue reading
Once people get into unstable housing then chance of debt increases and then it's a short step to no home and no job.
I’m noticing around my own locality that more and more houses are being bought to be let out as "rooms".
We’ve written recently about how rising housing costs are acting as a headwind, holding back improvements in living standards for many households in the UK today. But who is feeling the fullest force of the housing crisis? Which types of households are most likely to be living in unaffordable housing today and how has this changed over the last 20 years?
Continue reading
Once people get into unstable housing then chance of debt increases and then it's a short step to no home and no job.
I’m noticing around my own locality that more and more houses are being bought to be let out as "rooms".
Friday, 5 July 2013
The worst five years for struggling families
a blog post by Donald Hirsch, Director of the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University, for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation
In 2008, with our Minimum Income Standards research, the news for low-income families was grim, but not hopeless. We found that 'safety-net' benefits did not provide a basic living standard for parents who had lost their jobs, but required their families to live at a third below what the public thought you need for an acceptable life. But this was better than for those without children, who got less than half.
And while a minimum wage was also insufficient to bring families above this level, it was not too far below – about £1 extra an hour was needed. Since this was still a time when family benefits, in and out of work, were becoming generous, many low-income families were within touching distance of being able to make ends meet: to provide their children with the necessities of life without going into disastrous debt.
Almost everything that has happened since then has pushed such families in the opposite direction.
Continue reading
In 2008, with our Minimum Income Standards research, the news for low-income families was grim, but not hopeless. We found that 'safety-net' benefits did not provide a basic living standard for parents who had lost their jobs, but required their families to live at a third below what the public thought you need for an acceptable life. But this was better than for those without children, who got less than half.
And while a minimum wage was also insufficient to bring families above this level, it was not too far below – about £1 extra an hour was needed. Since this was still a time when family benefits, in and out of work, were becoming generous, many low-income families were within touching distance of being able to make ends meet: to provide their children with the necessities of life without going into disastrous debt.
Almost everything that has happened since then has pushed such families in the opposite direction.
Continue reading
Friday, 25 January 2013
The squeezed middle: The pressure on ordinary workers in America and Britain
via Resolution Foundation Publications
a Policy Press publication by Sophia Parker
Summary
As wages stagnate but living costs keep rising, the pressure on working people grows more intense. The issue of living standards has become one of the most urgent challenges for politicians in both Britain and America. “The squeezed middle” brings together experts from both sides of the Atlantic to ask what the UK can learn from the US.
American workers have not benefited from growth for an entire generation – the average American worker earned no more in 2009 than in 1975. Now British workers are undergoing a similar experience. No longer can they assume that when the economy grows their wages will grow with it.
This collection brings together for the first time leading economic and policy thinkers to analyse the impact of different policies on those on low-to-middle incomes and to explain what lessons the UK can learn from America’s “lost generation”. This timely book is essential reading for everyone concerned about the living standards crisis, an issue which could decide elections as well as shaping the future for millions of working families.
“This timely book provides incisive analysis from leading scholars of a key issue of contemporary politics on both sides of the Atlantic. It explores why middle incomes have stagnated and discusses what might be done about it. If you read one political book this year you should read this one.”
Andrew Gamble, Professor of Politics, University of Cambridge
Buy from Policy Press or Amazon
a Policy Press publication by Sophia Parker
Summary
As wages stagnate but living costs keep rising, the pressure on working people grows more intense. The issue of living standards has become one of the most urgent challenges for politicians in both Britain and America. “The squeezed middle” brings together experts from both sides of the Atlantic to ask what the UK can learn from the US.
American workers have not benefited from growth for an entire generation – the average American worker earned no more in 2009 than in 1975. Now British workers are undergoing a similar experience. No longer can they assume that when the economy grows their wages will grow with it.
This collection brings together for the first time leading economic and policy thinkers to analyse the impact of different policies on those on low-to-middle incomes and to explain what lessons the UK can learn from America’s “lost generation”. This timely book is essential reading for everyone concerned about the living standards crisis, an issue which could decide elections as well as shaping the future for millions of working families.
“This timely book provides incisive analysis from leading scholars of a key issue of contemporary politics on both sides of the Atlantic. It explores why middle incomes have stagnated and discusses what might be done about it. If you read one political book this year you should read this one.”
Andrew Gamble, Professor of Politics, University of Cambridge
Buy from Policy Press or Amazon
Wednesday, 16 January 2013
Pension reform means we must claim all benefits for a minimum income retirement
via JRF - Combined Feed by Katie Schmuecker
The new simplified state pension provides a safety net so that most pensioners should achieve an acceptable standard of living – as long as they claim all the benefits they&rsquo:re entitled to.
Inevitably, much of the comment and discussion of these reforms has turned to winners and losers. But stepping back from this level of detail, Pensions Minister Steve Webb has been on the airways saying this reform will provide a “bare minimum” income for people to live on, for them to top-up with a private pension where they can – something the means-tested pension credit has arguably disincentivised.
So the question is whether the “bare minimum” the government is proposing is adequate to achieve an acceptable standard of living.
Continue reading
The new simplified state pension provides a safety net so that most pensioners should achieve an acceptable standard of living – as long as they claim all the benefits they&rsquo:re entitled to.
Inevitably, much of the comment and discussion of these reforms has turned to winners and losers. But stepping back from this level of detail, Pensions Minister Steve Webb has been on the airways saying this reform will provide a “bare minimum” income for people to live on, for them to top-up with a private pension where they can – something the means-tested pension credit has arguably disincentivised.
So the question is whether the “bare minimum” the government is proposing is adequate to achieve an acceptable standard of living.
Continue reading
Wednesday, 9 January 2013
Moving on up: aspiration, living standards and growth
a Working Links Report by Stephen Evans
Executive Summary
There is a major debate about how to kickstart the UK economy with growth relatively low and living standards falling. However, these are manifestations of long-term challenges as well as the aftermath of the financial crisis.
In particular, the UK faces challenges of both ‘growth creation’ (how to boost long-term economic growth) and ‘growth sharing’ (as economic growth over the last decade has not led to improved living standards or opportunity).
The link between growth and living standards has been fractured by:
This is of fundamental importance.
The purpose of economic growth and policy is to improve living standards, and this is not currently happening. Too many people feel they get a ‘nothing for something’ deal as a result. The risk is that these forces continue to drive greater polarisation, with significant economic and social costs.
However, this is not inevitable.
Living standards have generally risen over time in the UK with productivity rising strongly until 2008, though inequality also grew. Other countries have higher productivity and social mobility, and lower inequality.
To boost long-term economic growth in a way that creates better paid jobs and progression opportunities, this report makes a number of recommendations:
Executive Summary
There is a major debate about how to kickstart the UK economy with growth relatively low and living standards falling. However, these are manifestations of long-term challenges as well as the aftermath of the financial crisis.
In particular, the UK faces challenges of both ‘growth creation’ (how to boost long-term economic growth) and ‘growth sharing’ (as economic growth over the last decade has not led to improved living standards or opportunity).
The link between growth and living standards has been fractured by:
- global economic changes, such as growth in emerging economies and technological change replacing intermediate jobs and ‘hollowing out’ the labour market; and
- a decline in labour market institutions, such as trades unions, that can contribute to greater equality.
This is of fundamental importance.
The purpose of economic growth and policy is to improve living standards, and this is not currently happening. Too many people feel they get a ‘nothing for something’ deal as a result. The risk is that these forces continue to drive greater polarisation, with significant economic and social costs.
However, this is not inevitable.
Living standards have generally risen over time in the UK with productivity rising strongly until 2008, though inequality also grew. Other countries have higher productivity and social mobility, and lower inequality.
To boost long-term economic growth in a way that creates better paid jobs and progression opportunities, this report makes a number of recommendations:
- Full employment and rising living standards should be the central aims of economic policy and reported accordingly.
- Welfare to work programmes should support people to progress at work, as well as to find and keep a job, and be funded in a cost-neutral way using Universal Credit savings.
- A new Getting On service to help 500,000 low paid workers over the next five years, paid for through savings in Universal Credit bills and skills funding.
- A new Growth and Opportunity Fund, rolling together existing funding streams to allow groups of Local Authorities to trial ways to boost productivity and living standards, measured by outcomes delivered.
- Support for partnership approaches to growth, including employer compacts to promote progression and the Living Wage and licenses to practice.
Tuesday, 18 December 2012
Multiple Disadvantages Among Older Citizens: What a Multidimensional Measure of Poverty Can Show
an article by Emily J. Callander, Deborah J. Schofield and Rupendra N. Shrestha (University of Sydney, Australia) published in Journal of Aging & Social Policy Volume 24 Issue 4 (October – December 2012)
Abstract
Using the newly created Freedom Poverty Measure, a multidimensional measure of poverty, it can be seen that there were 534,700 individuals who were in freedom poverty, who had either poor health or poor education in addition to having low incomes.
This multidimensional disadvantage would not normally be captured by single measures of poverty, such as income poverty measures. Men were significantly less likely to be in freedom poverty than women (OR = 0.63, 95% CI: 0.54–0.74, p < .0001), and the proportion of individuals in freedom poverty increased with age, with those older than 85 being 2.3 times more likely to be in freedom poverty than those aged 65 to 69 years (95% CI: 1.73–3.11, p < .0001).
Policy responses to address the marginalization of disadvantaged older people should take a multidisciplinary approach, addressing health inequalities in particular, not just low income.
I’m thinking and thinking but I am sure that I have not seen this Freedom Poverty Measure mentioned in anything I have read before.
Google to the rescue!
And, surprise, surprise, it’s the same three authors but in a different publication.
Capacity for Freedom – Using a New Poverty Measure to Look at Regional Differences in Living Standards within Australia
an article by Emily J. Callander, Deborah J. Schofield and Rupendra N. Shrestha (University of Sydney, Australia) published in Geographical Research Volume 50 Issue 4 (November 2012)
Abstract
Using a recently developed measure of multidimensional poverty, the Freedom Poverty Measure, the difference in poverty rates of major cities, inner regional, and other areas have been compared. The population living in ‘other areas’ had the highest proportion of individuals living in freedom poverty.
Those in inner regional areas (P = 0.0303) and those in major cities (P < 0.0001) were significantly less likely to be in freedom poverty than those in ‘other areas’. However, when breaking the analysis down to look at the different poverty rates for different age groups across the three regional classifications, it was found that there was no difference in the likelihood of being in freedom poverty between children in inner regional and other areas, adults in inner regional and other areas, and older people in inner regional and other areas.
This may indicate that the disadvantage experienced by those living in regional centres has been overlooked in the past and is an emerging contemporary issue for health and education equity as well as economic equality.
Abstract
Using the newly created Freedom Poverty Measure, a multidimensional measure of poverty, it can be seen that there were 534,700 individuals who were in freedom poverty, who had either poor health or poor education in addition to having low incomes.
This multidimensional disadvantage would not normally be captured by single measures of poverty, such as income poverty measures. Men were significantly less likely to be in freedom poverty than women (OR = 0.63, 95% CI: 0.54–0.74, p < .0001), and the proportion of individuals in freedom poverty increased with age, with those older than 85 being 2.3 times more likely to be in freedom poverty than those aged 65 to 69 years (95% CI: 1.73–3.11, p < .0001).
Policy responses to address the marginalization of disadvantaged older people should take a multidisciplinary approach, addressing health inequalities in particular, not just low income.
I’m thinking and thinking but I am sure that I have not seen this Freedom Poverty Measure mentioned in anything I have read before.
Google to the rescue!
And, surprise, surprise, it’s the same three authors but in a different publication.
Capacity for Freedom – Using a New Poverty Measure to Look at Regional Differences in Living Standards within Australia
an article by Emily J. Callander, Deborah J. Schofield and Rupendra N. Shrestha (University of Sydney, Australia) published in Geographical Research Volume 50 Issue 4 (November 2012)
Abstract
Using a recently developed measure of multidimensional poverty, the Freedom Poverty Measure, the difference in poverty rates of major cities, inner regional, and other areas have been compared. The population living in ‘other areas’ had the highest proportion of individuals living in freedom poverty.
Those in inner regional areas (P = 0.0303) and those in major cities (P < 0.0001) were significantly less likely to be in freedom poverty than those in ‘other areas’. However, when breaking the analysis down to look at the different poverty rates for different age groups across the three regional classifications, it was found that there was no difference in the likelihood of being in freedom poverty between children in inner regional and other areas, adults in inner regional and other areas, and older people in inner regional and other areas.
This may indicate that the disadvantage experienced by those living in regional centres has been overlooked in the past and is an emerging contemporary issue for health and education equity as well as economic equality.
Monday, 13 August 2012
Up-skilling the middle: How skills policy can help ensure that low to middle income households share in future economic growth
a new paper by Anna Vignoles (Institute of Education and Centre for the Analysis of Youth Transitions) published by the Resolution Foundation in its series “Living Standards”
Introduction
Successive governments have placed skills policy at the heart of strategies to raise living standards and tackle low pay. The importance of up-skilling, for the adult population in particular, reached a high point under New Labour, with low skill levels seen as one of, if not the most important factors holding back businesses from pursuing higher productivity and higher wage strategies.1 Yet there is growing cynicism about the potential for increases in skills per se to improve the material well-being of people on low to middle incomes (LMIs). While those who have degrees continue to reap significant wage benefits from their higher skill levels, the picture looks quite different for the majority of LMIs who possess low and intermediate qualifications, where the returns tend to be much lower and more variable. This paper asks why, despite massive public investment, and a dramatic increase in qualifications, skills policies have failed to deliver significant wage gains for this group of non-graduates, and what could be done to improve their prospects.
There is broad agreement that our education system and labour market work relatively well for most graduates. Average returns to degrees have remained high, despite the increase in the number of graduates. This might suggest there is some scope to raise LMI incomes through increasing the numbers going to higher education still further. There is less agreement on why the gap between graduates and those with low and intermediate qualifications remains so large, and why returns to these qualifications are so variable. Broadly speaking, the debate amongst academics and policy makers is split: on one side are those who point to failings in the skills system and the UK’s relatively low supply of certain skills; on the other are a growing number who argue that the ‘hollowing out’ of jobs in the middle of the labour market has reduced the demand for intermediate level skills from employers, and that this is reflected in lower wages and productivity for some workers. This paper carries out a critical review of skills policy specifically as it applies to the low to middle income group. We argue that in the context of an increasingly polarised labour market, one key challenge for skills policy in the next decade will be making those with low and intermediate skill more competitive with graduates, reducing the big gap in earnings between these groups.
Section 1 provides a brief overview of why skills matter – both for individuals’ productivity and wages, and in terms of the growth of the economy as a whole.
Section 2 summarises the current state of the academic and policy debate.
Section 3 looks briefly at recent trends in skills supply and demand, before pulling these two stories together in an attempt to steer a course through these debates.
Section four draws out the implications of this discussion for policy.
The paper is part of a series of contributions to the Resolution Foundation’s Commission on Living Standards. It will inform the Commission’s discussions in the run up to a final report in the autumn.
___________
1 Lloyd, Caroline and Mayhew, Ken, Skill: the solution to low wage work?, Industrial Relations Journal 41:5, 429–445 (2010)
Full text (PDF 24pp)
Introduction
Successive governments have placed skills policy at the heart of strategies to raise living standards and tackle low pay. The importance of up-skilling, for the adult population in particular, reached a high point under New Labour, with low skill levels seen as one of, if not the most important factors holding back businesses from pursuing higher productivity and higher wage strategies.1 Yet there is growing cynicism about the potential for increases in skills per se to improve the material well-being of people on low to middle incomes (LMIs). While those who have degrees continue to reap significant wage benefits from their higher skill levels, the picture looks quite different for the majority of LMIs who possess low and intermediate qualifications, where the returns tend to be much lower and more variable. This paper asks why, despite massive public investment, and a dramatic increase in qualifications, skills policies have failed to deliver significant wage gains for this group of non-graduates, and what could be done to improve their prospects.
There is broad agreement that our education system and labour market work relatively well for most graduates. Average returns to degrees have remained high, despite the increase in the number of graduates. This might suggest there is some scope to raise LMI incomes through increasing the numbers going to higher education still further. There is less agreement on why the gap between graduates and those with low and intermediate qualifications remains so large, and why returns to these qualifications are so variable. Broadly speaking, the debate amongst academics and policy makers is split: on one side are those who point to failings in the skills system and the UK’s relatively low supply of certain skills; on the other are a growing number who argue that the ‘hollowing out’ of jobs in the middle of the labour market has reduced the demand for intermediate level skills from employers, and that this is reflected in lower wages and productivity for some workers. This paper carries out a critical review of skills policy specifically as it applies to the low to middle income group. We argue that in the context of an increasingly polarised labour market, one key challenge for skills policy in the next decade will be making those with low and intermediate skill more competitive with graduates, reducing the big gap in earnings between these groups.
Section 1 provides a brief overview of why skills matter – both for individuals’ productivity and wages, and in terms of the growth of the economy as a whole.
Section 2 summarises the current state of the academic and policy debate.
Section 3 looks briefly at recent trends in skills supply and demand, before pulling these two stories together in an attempt to steer a course through these debates.
Section four draws out the implications of this discussion for policy.
The paper is part of a series of contributions to the Resolution Foundation’s Commission on Living Standards. It will inform the Commission’s discussions in the run up to a final report in the autumn.
___________
1 Lloyd, Caroline and Mayhew, Ken, Skill: the solution to low wage work?, Industrial Relations Journal 41:5, 429–445 (2010)
Full text (PDF 24pp)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
