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Resolution Foundation
@resolutionfoundation.org
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The Resolution Foundation is an independent think-tank dedicated to lifting living standards in the UK.
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resolutionfoundation.org
Catherine Mann, an External Member of the Monetary Policy Committee, spoke to the Resolution Foundation about the long-term scarring effect of the recent inflation spike.

Catch up on her remarks in full here ⤵️https://buff.ly/rGlmKQx
November 11, 2025 at 6:16 PM
resolutionfoundation.org
Local Housing Allowance rates have been realigned to market rents in just two of the last 13 years.

Current Government policy is for them to remain frozen . This risks a record 'affordability gap' opening between LHA rates and the 30th percentile of local rents.

➡️ buff.ly/gJR1hmO
Chart showing percentage gap between LHA rates and the estimated 30th percentile rent level since April 2012: Great Britain In April 2011, LHA was pegged to the 30th percentile (meaning that 30 per cent of privately rented properties in the BRMA are charged rent at or below the LHA rate) and a year later, the process of automatically linking LHA to market rents ended. Since then, LHA rates have been frozen in eight of the last 13 years and current Government policy, reflected in the official forecasts, is for them to remain frozen for another four years.
November 11, 2025 at 5:15 PM
resolutionfoundation.org
The latest labour market data suggest that pay growth is continuing to weaken.

After adjusting for inflation, average weekly pay has grown by just £3 over the past 12 months.
Chart showing: Real average weekly earnings (regular pay): GB
November 11, 2025 at 4:00 PM
resolutionfoundation.org
🚨Don't forget to sign up for our event on Thursday🚨

Successive governments have failed to grapple with Britain’s housing challenges, but can the Chancellor afford not to act decisively at this month's Budget?

🏠Register to join ⤵️

buff.ly/5SGqeU5
Date and time: Thursday 13 November 2025 9:30 am - 10:45 am Speakers Emily Williams Director of Residential Research at Savills Paul Cheshire Emeritus Professor of Economic Geography at the LSE Jamie Carswell Director of Housing and Safer Communities at the Royal Borough of Greenwich Lindsay Judge Research Director at the Resolution Foundation Ruth Curtice Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation (Chair)
November 11, 2025 at 2:31 PM
resolutionfoundation.org
Two crucial reforms the Budget could make are to motoring taxes.

Petrol and Fuel Duty are both historically cheap: permanently cancelling scheduled rises should not be a priority.

Read our Budget Preview now➡️ buff.ly/Y8cFfSW
Chart showing the real values of petrol and Fuel Duty per litre: UK Two crucial reforms the Budget could make are to motoring taxes, to boost the credibility of the UK’s public finances in both the medium and long-term. First, the Fuel Duty freeze should end. As the chart shows, the real value of Fuel Duty has been cut by a third (23p per litre) over the past decade, and the cost of petrol is low by the standards of the past 20 years. Attempting to continue the freeze indefinitely would mean the Chancellor had chosen to commit £5 billion in 2029-30 to lowering Fuel Duty, and any such sums would be far better directed at cutting electricity bills and reducing poverty, as we set out earlier. Simply going ahead with existing plans would still leave real Fuel Duty levels lower than at any point through 1994 to 2021
November 11, 2025 at 1:30 PM
resolutionfoundation.org
The Government could choose to make cuts to departmental spending to address the deterioration in the public finances.

But with some departments, such as Defra, already facing significant real-terms per-person cuts, these would have to go even further.
Chart showing indices of real per-person resource departmental expenditure limits 2009-10 =100), by selected departments and other departments: UK It is still the case that some departments already facing significant cuts would have to go even further. If we factor in changes to the size of the population, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), for example, is already facing real-terms per-person cuts of 10 per cent over the Spending Review period.
November 11, 2025 at 12:30 PM
resolutionfoundation.org
Ruth Curtice explains why tax rises are needed (tl;dw: to avoid more expensive borrowing).

This will need to be done carefully though, to avoid damaging growth, raising inflation or hitting households struggling most with the cost of living.
November 11, 2025 at 11:30 AM
resolutionfoundation.org
Reports yesterday that the Government is considering scrapping the two-child limit on benefits in full.

This would be a welcome step - fully repealing the two-child limit is by far the best way to ensure fewer children are growing up in poverty.
Chart showing relative child poverty after housing costs: UK All of the partial-repeal alternatives to scrapping the two-child limit in full would leave child poverty rates higher at the end of the forecast period than at the beginning (just under 32 per cent compared to just under 31 per cent in 2024-25).
November 11, 2025 at 10:15 AM
resolutionfoundation.org
The latest stats suggest the labour market is weakening on multiple fronts, as unemployment hits 5 per cent for the first time – outside of the pandemic – in almost a decade.
Nye Cominetti, Principal Economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “The UK labour market is weakening on all fronts. The number of jobs in the economy continues to fall, unemployment has hit five per cent for the first time in almost a decade – pandemic period aside – and pay growth is weakening too. Only the stabilisation of vacancies points in the other direction. “The risk is that the labour market downturn is more than just a blip based around the big tax rises on firms this April and could continue to worsen in the coming months. The Chancellor should aim to protect workers from more pain in her upcoming Budget and avoid adding further costs to employers.”
November 11, 2025 at 9:03 AM
resolutionfoundation.org
The impact of lower qualifications follows young people long into adulthood.

Barry Fletcher, CEO of Youth Futures Foundation, says the biggest gap is between those who do and don't have a GCSE.

Catch up on the full discussion ➡️ buff.ly/AQmrtM0
November 11, 2025 at 8:45 AM
resolutionfoundation.org
Taxes on the typical salary are now 55% higher than on self-employment income.

The effective tax rate for a self-employed worker equivalent to the median employee in 2025-26 was the second lowest in 50 years, behind only 2024-25.

buff.ly/4ppe7Q8
Chart showing total Income Tax and National Insurance as a share of labour cost: UK excluding Scotland
November 10, 2025 at 6:15 PM
resolutionfoundation.org
Did you know that government levies have driven more than half of the rise in electricity bills in recent years?

@jonnymarshall.bsky.social explains a better way of doing things ⤵️

Read 'Splitting the bill' to find out how to cut costs for three-in-four households 👉 buff.ly/sHhw6L1
November 10, 2025 at 5:30 PM
resolutionfoundation.org
How long will the triple lock last? 🔒

Nick Williams shared his perspective at our recent event.
November 10, 2025 at 4:46 PM
resolutionfoundation.org
Key childhood risk factors associated with being a NEET (not in education, employment or training) are becoming more common.

These indicators matter for policy makers interested in the future NEETs outlook.

Read more➡️ buff.ly/kIei4lG
Chart showing proportion of children with various indicators of NEET risk: England It is well-documented that an increasing share of children are growing up with a disability: among children aged 11-15 in England, the proportion who are classified as disabled has risen from less than one-in-ten in 2015-16 (9%) to almost one-in-six (16%) in 2023-24. This largely relates to impairments that are social or behavioural, learning-related or mental health-related. Relatedly, the proportion of children in England who receive support relating to special educational needs (SEN) is also on the rise. Among secondary school pupils, the proportion in receipt of SEN support has risen from 13% in 2015/16 to 17% in 2024/25. The proportion of children who are regularly missing school spiked during the Covid-19 pandemic and remains elevated. In 2024/25, one-in-five (21%) of secondary school pupils were persistently absent from school, meaning they missed 10% or more of term time.
November 10, 2025 at 4:30 PM
resolutionfoundation.org
The Government has announced a new independent investigation into rising youth inactivity.

In our recent report, we put forward a series of policies to help young people back into work or study. ⬇️

Read the full report here: buff.ly/s3jjW8h
November 10, 2025 at 3:30 PM
resolutionfoundation.org
If they don't implement significant policy changes, this Government will preside over the sharpest increase in child poverty by any Labour Government in the last 60 years ⤵️

Read 'No half measures' 👉 buff.ly/04eBps0
Chart showing average annual percentage point change in the proportion of children living in relative poverty, after housing costs, by parliament: GB/UK
November 10, 2025 at 2:15 PM
resolutionfoundation.org
Councils’ net temporary accommodation costs have increased more than three-fold in the last decade.

Widening affordability gaps between Local Housing Allowance rates and local rents risk pushing more families into temporary accommodation over the coming years.

Read more ➡️ buff.ly/uRZx9Bo
Chart showing annual real spending on temporary accomodation provision by local authorities (2024-25 prices): England Councils in England spent £2.8 billion on TA in 2024-25, more than double the £1.3 billion spent ten years earlier (in 2024-25 prices).
November 10, 2025 at 1:15 PM
resolutionfoundation.org
In 2024, the UK had the lowest taxes on an average employee of any G7 country.

UK taxes for lower earners were also the lowest in the G7.

But the UK's position might change in 2025.

Read more 👉 buff.ly/4ppe7Q8
Chart showing tax wedge for a single employee on that country's average pay: OECD, 2024 In OECD comparisons, which look at the equivalents of Income Tax and employee NI paid by a full-time employee on mean pay (around £50,000 in the UK), our effective tax rate was the lowest in the G7 last year, with the UK on 21 per cent – compared to 24 per cent in the US and 37 per cent in Germany. But this is not a complete measure: if we add in employer NI, then the total tax wedge for this employee rises to 29 per cent (as a share of total labour cost). But this was, again, the lowest in the G7, and among the lowest in the OECD, as Figure 1 shows, with an OECD average of 35 per cent.
November 10, 2025 at 12:30 PM
resolutionfoundation.org
Why should we switch 2p of tax from National Insurance to Income Tax? ⤵️

Income Tax raises more money and spreads the burden more fairly. The switch would raise £6 billion, and leave the vast majority of payslips unaffected.
1. Time for a rethink A gloomy economic outlook is making it more likely that the Chancellor will need to increase taxes at the Autumn Budget. she should take this opportunity to protect worker's pay packets, at the same time as bringing in revenue and making the tax system fairer. 2. A fairer share Currently, earnings from employment are taxed twice - in the form of National Insurance Contributions (NICs) and Income Tax. Other forms of income, like the income landlors earn from rent, only face Income Tax. Cutting NICs by 2p while increasing income tax by the same amount would have no impact on most employees. 3. A helping hand Under this proposal, a pensioner with an income of £25,000 would pay around £250 a year more in Income Tax. The New State Pension will be rising by over £500 next April. For pensioners with incomes below £40,000, that boost would be bigger than the tax rises, so they would still be better off next year than this year. 4. delivering fairness and fiscal stability The policy would raise £6 billion a year while protecting the payslips of 30 million employees. This is a chance for the Chancellor to provide fiscal reassurance alongside long-lasting beneficial tax reform.
November 10, 2025 at 11:45 AM
resolutionfoundation.org
Ahead of the Budget at the end of this month, the OBR is expected to mark down trend productivity growth.

GDP growth is likely to be significantly weaker than in the OBR’s March forecast.

Read our Budget Preview➡️ buff.ly/XPioKOp
If the OBR marks down trend productivity growth as expected, that would imply a similar change to the outlook for overall growth in the medium term. On top of that, the near-term outlook has deteriorated given a rise in trade uncertainty emanating from the US following new tariffs put in place by President Trump. While other countries have by and large not retaliated, reducing the size of the headwind to global growth, it is likely that the OBR will reduce growth in 2025 and 2026 (albeit with something of bounce back thereafter). Combined, as shown in Figure 3, the OBR’s forecast is likely to be weaker in the near term than it was in March, as well as towards the end of the forecast when the effect of the assumed markdown to trend growth dominates.
November 10, 2025 at 10:30 AM
resolutionfoundation.org
This is not the time for half measures.

@alexclegg.bsky.social explains why the Government should fully repeal the two child limit on benefits, as part of their upcoming Child Poverty Strategy ⤵️
November 10, 2025 at 9:35 AM
resolutionfoundation.org
🚨Event on Thursday🚨

Successive governments have failed to grapple with Britain’s housing challenges, but can the Chancellor afford not to act decisively at this month's Budget?

🏠Register to join our discussion next Thursday⤵️

buff.ly/5SGqeU5
Date and time: Thursday 13 November 2025 9:30 am - 10:45 am Speakers Emily Williams Director of Residential Research at Savills Paul Cheshire Emeritus Professor of Economic Geography at the LSE Jamie Carswell Director of Housing and Safer Communities at the Royal Borough of Greenwich Lindsay Judge Research Director at the Resolution Foundation Ruth Curtice Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation (Chair)
November 9, 2025 at 5:01 PM
resolutionfoundation.org
The Budget will be a pivotal moment for a Government looking to improve its mood music.

James Smith explains why the Chx should prioritise:

🏦 The public finances
👛 The cost of living
📃 Payslips

Read 'Black holes and consolidations' to learn more ⤵️ buff.ly/XPioKOp
November 9, 2025 at 2:26 PM
resolutionfoundation.org
Ahead of the Budget at the end of this month, the OBR is expected to mark down trend productivity growth.

GDP growth is likely to be significantly weaker than in the OBR’s March forecast.

Read our Budget Preview➡️ buff.ly/XPioKOp
If the OBR marks down trend productivity growth as expected, that would imply a similar change to the outlook for overall growth in the medium term. On top of that, the near-term outlook has deteriorated given a rise in trade uncertainty emanating from the US following new tariffs put in place by President Trump. While other countries have by and large not retaliated, reducing the size of the headwind to global growth, it is likely that the OBR will reduce growth in 2025 and 2026 (albeit with something of bounce back thereafter). Combined, as shown in Figure 3, the OBR’s forecast is likely to be weaker in the near term than it was in March, as well as towards the end of the forecast when the effect of the assumed markdown to trend growth dominates.
November 9, 2025 at 11:15 AM
resolutionfoundation.org
What key steps can the Government take to overhaul car taxation in the upcoming budget?
November 8, 2025 at 3:53 PM