Looking at low income household indebtedness in austerity Britain, Hulya Dagdeviren and Jiayi Balasuriya find that the poorest households have experienced the greatest growth in unsecured debt to income ratio. More importantly, unlike the pre-crisis period when debt reflected a desire ‘to keep up with the Joneses’, in recent years there has been a rise in debt for essential […]
Is austerity a ‘dream come true’ for neoliberals, or did the global financial crisis force policymakers to question neoliberalism’s core principles and change direction? Focusing on speeches by members of the International Monetary Fund, Kevin Farnsworth and Zoë Irving find little to suggest that the fundamental assumptions of neoliberalism have been displaced.
It is now over ten years since the […]
Simon Parker looks at the government’s response to civil disorder in Liverpool in the 1980s and specifically at the policy of “managed decline”. This, he explains, involved the abandonment of a damaged part of the city in order to preserve the healthy remainder. Such strategies still influence policy circles, and therefore remain a threat.
Alone, every night … I would […]
Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin explain how Britain has become less mobile, particularly at the top and bottom of society.
One David was born in a terraced house in East London, his father a kitchen fitter, his mother a hairdresser. The other David grew up in an idyllic village in the English countryside, his father a stockbroker, his mother […]
In 1931, the UK imposed barriers that increased the Empire’s share of British trade and decreased its multilateral nature, write Alan de Bromhead, Alan Fernihough, Markus Lampe, and Kevin O’Rourke. Here they revisit the extent to which trade policy was responsible for the shift towards intra-imperial trade, but do so through adopting a new approach.
In a 2016 survey paper, […]
Susan McVie, Ellie Bates, and Rebecca Pillinger examine long-term change in violence within Greater London and the old Strathclyde region and ask whether there really is evidence of Scottish exceptionalism in patterns and trends in violence.
The recurrent press coverage of stabbings and gun crime in London acts as a sobering reminder that, even though violent crime across Britain as a whole […]
Membership of the EU stops arbitrary corporate welfare in the UK and expressly encourages aid for environmental protection, writes Ewan McGaughey. He explains how state aid rules work and how they empower the UK to get a New Green Deal. What stops us from changing the direction of the economy in this respect is therefore not the EU but […]
Low income households under austerity: a notable rise in debt for essential needs
Brexit was not the voice of the working class nor of the uneducated – it was of the squeezed middle
Exploitable loopholes: how the self-employed non-resident status can be a route to child maintenance evasion
How effective is Parliament in controlling UK government and representing citizens?
Rent controls in London? What is being suggested is not new – indeed it looks pretty mainstream
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The alleged simplicity of Universal Credit and the lived experience of benefit claimants
The alleged simplicity of Universal Credit and the lived experience of benefit claimants
Kate Summers and David Young challenge the assumed simplicity of Universal Credit by focusing on its single monthly payment design. They draw on two empirical studies of means-tested benefit claimants in order to explain how short-termism is a crucial tool for those managing social security benefits.
At its heart, Universal Credit is very simple
Iain Duncan Smith, Work and Pensions […]