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NEW REPORT: Big choices on welfare policy and child poverty in this election https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/the-shifting-shape-of-social-security/
An end to austerity means this election is very different to the last few - no party is proposing/boasting about further welfare cuts. Long term trend is social security rising. It's up from 4% GDP after WW2, and projected to be 3x that by the late 2060s.
Social security is shaped by the economic cycle, demography and policy. The very long term driver of social security is that more of us are pensioners. In recent decades we're spending more on housing costs, working families and the costs of disability
Background to this election 1: Policy choices since 2010 have made the system more generous for pensioners and much less generous for working-age families
Background to this election 2: this decade policy choices have reduced the income of the poorest families by almost a fifth with cuts totalling £34bn
Background to this election 3: why has the phase of huge new benefit cuts come to an end? Because the public no-longer support it... homelessness and food banks are a disgrace of 21st Century Britain
So what are the parties proposing?
Conservatives: not so much (still a change from proposing cuts)
Labour/Lib Dems: very large, similar increases in spending. £9bn on social security (largely reversing cuts) plus £8bn on in kind support (LD = childcare, Labour = broadband...)
Conservatives: not so much (still a change from proposing cuts)
Labour/Lib Dems: very large, similar increases in spending. £9bn on social security (largely reversing cuts) plus £8bn on in kind support (LD = childcare, Labour = broadband...)
Labour/Lib Dems have to raise taxes considerably to pay for these giveaways. Both their packages are highly progressive - in kind support less so than reversing cuts.
Labour is focusing on large families/renters/ disabled people. But many working-age families would still feel the impact of post-2015 cuts - the impact of the £5bn+ benefits freeze would remain. Working couples with children would be £150 worse off, working single parents £600
The Conservative manifesto doesn't propose big welfare changes, but a Conservative government would continue with existing policies, presiding over £3.8bn of cuts to working-age benefits set to roll out after the 2019 election (particularly for largely families with kids)
The impact on child poverty? Conservatives' plans risk child poverty levels rising to the highest on record. Labour/ Lib Dems plans (requiring big tax rises) would halt the rise in child poverty BUT no manifesto would actually see falls in child poverty
Our political class still not waking up to reality of changing living standards of working-age families and pensioners.
Labour: spending more on one group of women pensioners (£58bn) than all their benefit cut reversals together
Conservatives: recommitting to the triple lock
Labour: spending more on one group of women pensioners (£58bn) than all their benefit cut reversals together
Conservatives: recommitting to the triple lock
So big choices on social security - fitting within bigger choices about the size of state and tax you want. Labour/Lib Dems want to spend/tax A LOT more, the Conservatives are basically sticking with status quo. Read full report from @lauracgardiner https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/the-shifting-shape-of-social-security/
