An article examined how the distribution of household income had changed over the previous 30 years. The period could be subdivided almost exactly into two halves: a period of substantial change to the income distribution (1977 to 1991), and a period of relative stability (1992 to 2007).
Source: Francis Jones, Daniel Annan and Saef Shah, 'The distribution of household income 1977 to 2006/07', Economic & Labour Market Review, December 2008, Office for National Statistics, Palgrave Macmillan (01256 329242)
Links: Article | Abstract | BBC report
Date: 2008-Dec
A report examined the government's record on poverty and social exclusion after 10 years. After an initial burst of success, improvement in many key areas had slowed down or remained unchanged.
Source: Guy Palmer, Tom MacInnes and Peter Kenway, Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion 2008, Joseph Rowntree Foundation (01904 629241)
Links: Report | Findings | JRF press release | CAP press release | FT report | Community Care report
Date: 2008-Dec
A paper examined the causes and possible cures of injurious inequalities, looking at five overlapping types of inequalities and how to remedy them. Equality was a core value of both the Christian and Western democratic tradition. Much had been achieved in the field of legal and civic equality: but historically such economic levelling in Britain had resulted from the cost pressures of war rather from deliberate political design.
Source: Ferdinand Mount, Five Types of Inequality, Joseph Rowntree Foundation (01904 629241)
Links: Paper
Date: 2008-Dec
A paper said that, in the face of 'extraordinary' social inequalities, the myth that accumulating wealth was the supreme human purpose needed to be replaced before any improvement would occur.
Source: Jeremy Seabrook, Why Do People Think Inequality Is Worse Than Poverty?, Joseph Rowntree Foundation (01904 629241)
Links: Paper
Date: 2008-Dec
A paper said that, in the face of selfish individualism and wasteful consumerism, it was necessary to create a counter-dynamic that supported new forms of agency, solidarity, and individual behaviour to rebuild a strong civil society. Investing in civil society would help to foster behavioural change, and reinvigorate existing forms and create new forms of agency, which were better able to harness the advances in technology and economic development for the common good.
Source: Stephen Thake, Individualism and Consumerism: Reframing the Debate, Joseph Rowntree Foundation (01904 629241)
Links: Paper | JRF press release
Date: 2008-Nov
A paper said that none of the most important contemporary issues facing society – such as climate change or the collapse of credit markets – could be solved by people acting as individual consumers, or by reference to more market freedoms. Progressives needed to establish a richer and more ambitious definition of what it was to be free – one that entailed not just personal freedom but also the ability to shape the institutions that really affected people's lives – the market and the state. This could only happen if people were more equal, and more willing and able to work collectively to achieve what they could not do alone.
Source: Neal Lawson, A Wrong Turn in the Search for Freedom?, Joseph Rowntree Foundation (01904 629241)
Links: Paper | JRF press release
Date: 2008-Nov
The Scottish Government published a framework aimed at tackling poverty and income inequality . It set out the key actions required by government and its partners – such as the strengthening of income maximization work, launching a campaign to raise awareness of statutory workers' rights, and supporting people who found it hardest to get into jobs or use public services. It also called for the United Kingdom government to transfer responsibility for personal taxation and benefits to Scotland, simplify the tax credits scheme, and promote the greater availability of childcare vouchers.
Source: Achieving Our Potential: A Framework to tackle poverty and income inequality in Scotland, Scottish Government, available from Blackwell's Bookshop (0131 622 8283)
Links: Report | Summary | SG press release
Date: 2008-Nov
Campaigners called for an international initiative to set out general legal principles that would define equality as a basic human right.
Source: Declaration of Principles on Equality, Equal Rights Trust (020 3178 4113)
Links: Declaration | ERT press release
Date: 2008-Oct
A paper said that the cause of growing fear and distrust in society was visible physical inequality and segregation in the environment, combined with a commercially driven media with a vested interest in promoting fear.
Source: Anna Minton, Why Are Fear and Distrust Spiralling in Twenty-first Century Britain?, Joseph Rowntree Foundation (01904 629241)
Links: Paper | JRF press release | Guardian report
Date: 2008-Oct
A report said that income inequality had grown dramatically in most regions of the world since the early 1990s. Although a certain degree of income inequality was useful in rewarding effort, talent, and innovation, huge differences could be counter-productive and damaging for most economies. Excessive income inequality represented a danger to the social fabric as well as economic efficiency.
Source: World of Work Report 2008: Income Inequalities in the Age of Financial Globalization, International Institute for Labour Studies/International Labour Organization (+41 (0) 22 799 6111)
Links: Report | Summary | ILO press release
Date: 2008-Oct
A report said that the gap between rich and poor in the United Kingdom had decreased between 2000 and 2005: but the country still had one of the highest levels of income inequality in the developed world.
Source: Growing Unequal? Income distribution and poverty in OECD countries, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (+33 1 4524 8200)
Links: Summary | OECD press release | CPAG press release | Conservative Party press release | BBC report | Telegraph report | Guardian report | FT report
Date: 2008-Oct
A report examined the benefits to be expected from learning as a lifetime experience. It said that 70-90 per cent of young people who would go on to experience serious deprivation in their adult years could be identified while still in primary school from what was known about their personal and family circumstances.
Source: Leon Feinstein, David Budge, John Vorhaus and Kathryn Duckworth (eds.), The Social and Personal Benefits of Learning: A summary of key research findings, Centre for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning/University of London (020 7612 6291)
Links: Report | IOE press release
Date: 2008-Oct
An article used 'structural equation modelling', in conjunction with the British Household Panel Study, to create a multi-dimensional measure of poverty. The analysis revealed that the decline in poverty between 1991 and 2003 was driven by falls in material deprivation: but more especially by reduced financial stress, particularly during the early 1990s.
Source: Mark Tomlinson, Robert Walker and Glenn Williams, 'Measuring poverty in Britain as a multi-dimensional concept, 1991 to 2003', Journal of Social Policy, Volume 37 Issue 4
Links: Abstract
Date: 2008-Oct
A trade union report examined the impact of the 'super rich' on the general well-being of society. It said that the economy was increasingly skewed to serve the interests of a tiny minority, and that society was losing touch with a basic sense of fairness. Rather than being a 'positive sum game' with no losers, much wealth accumulation was the product of carefully manipulated transfers that harmed others, from ordinary taxpayers and shareholders to customers.
Source: Stewart Lansley, Do the Super-Rich Matter?, Trades Union Congress (020 7467 1294)
Links: Report | TUC press release | BBC report
Date: 2008-Sep
The government announced the establishment of a 'National Equality Panel' made up of academic experts in inequality. The Panel was charged with providing the government with an authoritative analysis of inequality by the end of 2009. It would provide a factual analysis of how equality trends had changed over the previous 10 years, and identify where gaps had narrowed and widened in society. It would investigate how people's life chances were affected by gender, race, disability, age, and other important aspects of inequality such as where they were born, what kind of family they were born into, where they lived, and their wealth.
Source: Press release 10 September 2008, Cabinet Office (020 7261 8527)
Links: Cabinet Office press release | LSE press release | Bristol University press release | FT report | Personnel Today report | Community Care report
Date: 2008-Sep
A new book analyzed the legacy of the Blair governments (1997-2007) for social policy, focusing on the extent to which it had changed the welfare state.
Source: Martin Powell (ed.), Modernising the Welfare State: The Blair legacy, Policy Press, available from Marston Book Services (01235 465500)
Links: Summary
Date: 2008-Sep
A report summarized the findings of a roundtable meeting to explore the relevance and potential of human rights for poverty eradication in the United Kingdom.
Source: Human Rights and Tackling UK Poverty, British Institute of Human Rights/King's College London (020 7401 2712) with Oxfam, Amnesty UK and Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Date: 2008-Aug
A new book examined the trend towards growing inequality in wages in the United Kingdom – exposing a 'greedy, dysfunctional and unfair' society. Recent trends in pay were not sustainable, and all political parties needed to rethink tax policies and the programmes financed by taxes in order to create a fairer society.
Source: Polly Toynbee and David Walker, Unjust Rewards: Exposing greed and inequality in Britain today, Granta Books (020 7605 1360)
Links: Summary | Extract | Guardian report
Date: 2008-Aug
The opposition Conservative Party said that 'top-down, state control' under Labour had created an unfair Britain. The number of people in severe poverty had increased by 900,000 since 1997; 'stealth taxes' meant that the poorest paid more of their income in tax than the richest; the gap in life expectancy between rich and poor was at its widest since the Victorian era; and educational inequality was getting worse.
Source: An Unfair Britain: Why Labour have failed on fairness, Conservative Party (020 7222 9000)
Links: Report | Conservative Party press release | CPAG press release | Community Care report
Date: 2008-Aug
The equality and human rights watchdog called (in response to a government consultation on the Equality Bill) for a complete overhaul of equality laws, and a new contract with the public on fairness. There was a 'great danger' from the entrenchment of greater and more divisive inequality between social classes. Power should be put in the hands of citizens and not remote bureaucracies, and people should be able to test local public services such as schools and hospitals on how fairly they treat the people who used them.
Source: Fairness: A new contract with the public, Equality and Human Rights Commission (020 3117 0235)
Links: Report | EHRC press release | BBC report
Date: 2008-Jul
The opposition Conservative Party published a five-point programme aimed at tackling social divisions between rich and poor in cities. It included help to get young people out of gangs and into work and training; job placements for young people aged 18-21 in areas affected by gang crime; specialist welfare-to-work programmes in the poorest neighbourhoods; improving education in divided communities; and better support for community groups working in deprived areas.
Source: Uniting Britain's Divided Cities, Conservative Party (020 7222 9000)
Links: Conservative Party press release | CPAG press release | NCH press release | Liberal Democrats press release | Guardian report | BBC report | Inside Housing report
Date: 2008-Jul
A study found that a single person needed to earn at least £13,400 per year before tax in order to afford a basic but socially acceptable standard of living. This 'minimum income standard' was based on the consensus reached among ordinary people (on a range of incomes) about what they felt was needed in a modern society. For families with no adult working, state benefits provided for less than one-half of the minimum budget for single people, and around two-thirds for those with children. The basic state pension provided a retired couple with about three-quarters of the minimum: but if they claimed the means-tested pension credit their income was topped up to just above the minimum income standard.
Source: Jonathan Bradshaw et al., A Minimum Income Standard for Britain: What people think, Policy Press for Joseph Rowntree Foundation, available from Marston Book Services (01235 465500)
Links: Report | JRF Findings | JRF press release | CPAG press release | CAP press release | Help the Aged press release | Guardian report | BBC report
Date: 2008-Jul
A new book examined the enormous growth in inequality in the distribution of income and wealth in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. It explored the social costs entailed by relative deprivation and widespread income insecurity – costs which affected not just low-income groups but also reached well into the middle classes. Advanced economies needed more progressive taxation to dampen fluctuations and to fund higher levels of social provision.
Source: George Irvin, Super Rich: The rise of inequality in Britain and the United States, Polity Press (01243 843291)
Links: Summary
Date: 2008-Jul
An article examined how school leaders in England understood and described social justice in terms of their own lives – by recognizing the ways in which they themselves had experienced inclusion or exclusion.
Source: Alison Taysum and Helen Gunter, 'A critical approach to researching social justice and school leadership in England', Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, Volume 3 Number 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2008-Jul
An article examined the Labour government's record on poverty and social justice since 1997. Poverty rates had fallen, but not for everyone on low incomes. Although fiscal policy had introduced a greater egalitarianism into public policy, society remained as divided by income as it was when Labour took office. Critics continued to argue that more should be done to narrow the gap between rich and poor in the name of social justice: but the government's record reflected the balance of priorities between a market-led strategy for economic growth and welfare policies for social justice.
Source: Stephen Driver, 'Poverty, social justice and the Labour government, 1997-2007', Benefits, Volume 16 Number 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2008-Jun
A paper examined the reform process in the welfare system from 1996, and its future direction of change. The emerging model was far from completion and the final make-up of the system remained uncertain: but it bore strong similarities to developments in New Zealand and (to a degree) in Australia and Canada.
Source: Paul Gregg, UK Welfare Reform 1996 to 2008 and Beyond: A personalised and responsive welfare system?, Working Paper 08/196, Centre for Market and Public Organisation/University of Bristol (0117 954 6943)
Links: Working paper
Date: 2008-Jun
A report examined how taxes and benefits redistributed income between households in 2006-07. Inequality of disposable income, as measured by the Gini coefficient, increased between 2004-05 and 2006-07, although it had continued to remain within the same broad range of values since 1987.
Source: Francis Jones, The Effects of Taxes and Benefits on Household Income, 2006/07, Office for National Statistics (web publication only)
Links: Report | Liberal Democrats press release
Date: 2008-Jun
A new book examined the meaning of social justice, and how it translated into the everyday concerns of public and social policy in the context of both multiculturalism and globalization.
Source: Gary Craig, Tania Burchardt and David Gordon (eds.), Social Justice and Public Policy: Seeking fairness in diverse societies, Policy Press, available from Marston Book Services (01235 465500)
Links: Summary
Date: 2008-Jun
A think-tank report examined changes to average incomes, inequality, and poverty that had occurred under the first 10 years of the Labour government. Income inequality had risen for a second successive year in 2006-07, and was equal to its highest level since comparable records began in 1961.
Source: Mike Brewer, Alastair Muriel, David Phillips and Luke Sibieta, Poverty and Inequality in the UK: 2008, Commentary 105, Institute for Fiscal Studies (020 7291 4800)
Links: Report | Telegraph report
Date: 2008-Jun
A new book examined the revival of support for meritocracy under New Labour, with particular reference to its implications for education. It considered the ways New Labour had interpreted the idea of active citizenship. It also provided an analysis of policy responses to the problems of multiculturalism, and their relation to immigration policy and ideas of a common civic culture.
Source: John Beck, Meritocracy, Citizenship and Education: New Labour's legacy, Continuum International Publishing (020 7922 0880)
Links: Summary
Date: 2008-May
The opposition Conservative Party said that under the Labour government the number of people in severe poverty had risen by 600,000: this was because it had concentrated on the symptoms of social breakdown rather than the causes. The report set out measures to address the deep-rooted causes of poverty, such as educational failure, family breakdown, drug abuse, indebtedness, and crime.
Source: Making British Poverty History, Conservative Party (020 7222 9000)
Links: Report | Conservative Party press release | Guardian report
Date: 2008-Apr
A think-tank report (prepared for a review of the tax system under James Mirrlees) said that increasing the rate of tax paid by the rich would be unlikely to raise extra revenue: 'new, albeit tentative' evidence suggested that raising income tax rates for those earning more than £100,000 was likely to be counter-productive. The report said that the tax credit and benefit systems should be overhauled to strengthen work incentives for people on low incomes, to increase simplicity and certainty for families, and to reduce fraud and administration costs for the taxpayer. Existing piece-meal benefits for low-income families (income support, income-based jobseekers' allowance, working and child tax credits, housing benefit, and council tax benefit) should be folded into a single programme, to be called 'integrated family support'.
Source: Mike Brewer, Emmanuel Saez and Andrew Shephard, Means-Testing and Tax Rates on Earnings, Institute for Fiscal Studies (020 7291 4800)
Links: Report | IFS press release | Liberal Democrats press release | FT report
Date: 2008-Apr
An article examined welfare state reform agendas in Germany and the United Kingdom, in order to explore the competing influences on social policy of an ostensibly common set of ideas and contrasting institutionalized policy legacies. 'Third Way' policy reforms could only be understood from within the two nations' institutionalized policy legacies. In addition, policy networks had had a considerable influence on reform trajectories.
Source: John Hudson, Gyu-Jin Hwang and Stefan Kuhner, 'Between ideas, institutions and interests: analysing Third Way welfare reform programmes in Germany and the United Kingdom', Journal of Social Policy, Volume 37 Issue 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2008-Apr
A government minister said that rather than questioning the morality of 'huge salaries', people should celebrate them. The overarching goal that no one should get left behind should not became translated into a 'stultifying' sense that no one should be allowed to get ahead.
Source: Speech by John Hutton MP (Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform), 11 March 2008
Links: Speech | TUC press release | Guardian report | BBC report
Date: 2008-Mar
An article examined the basic similarities and differences between the social policies of the Major and Blair governments. Although the policies had been presented within different 'discourses', there had been a marked similarity in policy content. Towards the end of his second term of office, Blair started to go beyond the 'third way' and towards a Thatcherite model of competition between public and private suppliers.
Source: Brian Lund, 'Major, Blair and the third way in social policy', Social Policy and Administration, Volume 42 Number 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2008-Feb
A new book examined the economic and political power wielded by a new class of 'super rich' people based in the financial services industry.
Source: Robert Peston, Who Runs Britain? How the super-rich are changing our lives, Hodder and Stoughton (01235 400580)
Links: Summary | Guardian report
Date: 2008-Feb
An annual survey of social attitudes found that 1 in 4 people thought that poverty was due to 'laziness or lack of willpower' – up from 1 in 5 in 1986.
Source: Peter Taylor-Gooby and Rose Martin, 'Trends in sympathy for the poor' in Alison Park, John Curtice, Katarina Thomson, Miranda Phillips and Mark Johnson (eds.), British Social Attitudes: The 24th Report, SAGE Publications Ltd (020 7324 8500)
Links: Summary | NatCen press release | Telegraph report | BBC report | FT report
Date: 2008-Jan
A briefing note provided an analysis of the characteristics of high-income individuals, and how their incomes had evolved over time. Even though the government had increased taxes on people with high incomes, this had not prevented them from racing further away from the average level of living standards. It was only in the wake of extended falls in the stock market that the incomes of the richest had fallen.
Source: Mike Brewer, Luke Sibieta and Liam Wren-Lewis, Racing Away? Income inequality and the evolution of high incomes, Briefing Note 76, Institute for Fiscal Studies (web publication only)
Links: Briefing Note | IFS press release | Guardian report | FT report
Date: 2008-Jan
A paper said that the refusal of successive governments to incorporate the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights into United Kingdom law had compounded common social attitudes that denigrated people who experienced poverty and undermined popular support for policies to eradicate poverty.
Source: Damian Killeen, Is Poverty in the UK a Denial of People's Human Rights?, Joseph Rowntree Foundation (01904 615905)
Links: Paper
Date: 2008-Jan
An article said that social rights continued to be a relatively marginalized or qualified element of the human rights agenda, and might be more effectively harnessed by way of a welfare rights approach based on a politics of 'needs interpretation'.
Source: Hartley Dean, 'Social policy and human rights: re-thinking the engagement', Social Policy and Society, Volume 7 Issue 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2008-Jan