Today is the opening day of the TUC’s two day Disabled Worker’s Conference. And last week was the Mental Health Awareness Week, with the theme of Surviving or Thriving? While the employment rate of disabled people has increased in the last few years there is still a large disability employment gap…Read more…
How the tax system is driving people into insecure work in unexpected ways
I work for the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group, a group of tax and welfare rights specialists with expertise in the tax and related welfare issues of the low-paid. Often, people contact us describing their problems with tax, National Insurance, tax credit…Read more…
Action is what is needed to tackle race at work
This week the government published the findings of the McGregor-Smith review. The aim of the review is to report on the barriers BME people face when in work. This report is seen as an opportunity for the government to finally take action and tackle th…Read more…
Women, crime and inequality
Official statistics show that you’re more likely to be a victim of violent crime or domestic abuse if you are a woman and if you live in a poorer part of the country. A woman living in one of the most deprived parts of the country is nearly four times as likely as a man…
The post Women,…Read more…
The Child Maintenance Service is changing and it matters
At single parents’ charity Gingerbread, we’re campaigning to ensure the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is fit for purpose for the UK’s two million single parent families. Launched in September 2016, our campaign Maintenance Matters calls for a fairer charging system and zero-tolerance on…Read more…
#AutumnStatement Universal Credit changes won’t make up for cuts that hit families and low-paid workers
The Chancellor’s announcement of a small cut in the Universal Credit taper rate goes nowhere near making up for the cuts his predecessor announced in July 2015, which will leave many low-paid working families hundreds – even thousands – of pounds worse off a year. As the End Child…Read more…
More money for housing in Autumn Statement – but also more Right To Buy
This afternoon in the #AutumnStatement Philip Hammond announced a number of measures that go some way to addressing the crisis we are facing in both the private and rented housing sectors. These include: A Housing Infrastructure Fund of £2.3bn by 2020-2021, funded by the NPIF (National Productivity…Read more…
Child Poverty is on the Rise and Concentrated in the Places the Government’s Policies Will Hurt Most
Today the End Child Poverty coalition published their annual Child Poverty Map of the UK which local authorities and parliamentary constituencies across the UK and shows the proportion of children living in poverty in each. (Full disclosure: the TUC is…Read more…
Three quarters of the people hit by the Benefit Cap are children. Today, things got worse
Today, the government took another step to increase the number of children in poverty. They have done this by cutting the Benefit Cap, first introduced by the Coalition government. Outside London, the number of people in need whose benefits are cut is …Read more…
Official: Universal Credit is “less generous” than tax credits
For the first time, an authoritative statutory body has recognised that the cuts to Universal Credit announced in last summer’s Budget will mean that it is much less generous than was originally planned, making it effectively a cut when compared with Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit which it…Read more…
Life and death: a tale of inequality
The latest figures for life expectancy and healthy life expectancy show that where you live can be a matter of life and death: the more deprived your town or district, the lower your life expectancy. The data, from the Office for National Statistics, show life expectancy for men and women for…Read more…
Housing crisis solved at #CPC16?
Perhaps not quite yet, I fear. Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government announced a new scheme to support house-building at the Conservative Party Conference yesterday, saying that: “We want to ensure everyone has a safe and secure place to live and that means we’ve got…Read more…
Standstill wages mean over a million low-income families struggle with extreme debt
Today saw the publication of our (The Centre for Responsible Credit) final report from the joint TUC and Unison commissioned ‘Britain in the Red’ project. The project has been looking at available aggregate and household survey data to track the extent of household over-indebtedness: particularly…Read more…
Brexit and social security – we need a debate on the trade union response
What will leaving the European Union mean for social security policy in the UK? In this post I’m going to explain why we should prepare for social security cuts as part of any move to introduce a new austerity. In a few days I hope to return to this subject and look at some of…
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Worrying increase in sanctions against the sick and disabled
Today’s figures revealed that sanctions against Employment and Support (ESA) claimants increased in December to 1,708. This was up by 451 on the previous month. ESA is the out-of-work benefit for people whose illness, health condition or disability makes it difficult or impossible to work. To…Read more…
Will the disability employment gap ever be halved?
The TUC has published new analysis of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) ahead of its annual Disabled Workers’ conference which shows the differences in employment, unemployment and earnings between disabled and non-disabled workers. We have set out some key findings below. The government…Read more…
#Budget2016 risks Right to Buy groundhog folly
Today in the Budget the Chancellor once again asserted that ‘…we are the builders’. However, this hasn’t yet been borne out when it comes to housing. In the 2015 Autumn Statement, and again in the Budget, the Chancellor set out the government’s commitment to deliver 400,000 affordable housing…Read more…
#Budget2016 ignores housing crisis
Sadly although Chancellor Osborne once again asserted that his party were “the builders”, today’s budget largely ignored the housing crisis. The best that can be said is that there bit was a commitment of £115 million to help the homeless and rough sleepers, who must be the…Read more…
Home ownership amongst the young is falling: urgent action needed
Bank Underground (the Bank of England blog, which is well worth subscribing to) today featured a fascinating piece about transactions in the housing market. Whilst the blog is rich in detail, and I would urge anyone interested to take a read, what stru…Read more…
Bedroom Tax – hurting just like we said it would
This was MPs’ last day before the holidays and the department for Work and Pensions celebrated by publishing fourteen – count them – reports, releases and statements. In this take out the trash glut you might be forgiven for missing the excitingly titled Evaluation of Removal of…Read more…