Your regular reminder:
Welfare reform is not cuts.
It’s reform to improve support & open up opportunities.
Government attempts to cut disability benefits last year failed because it wasn’t reform. It was just cuts. Would disabled people & push them further from labour market
If the system is to work, it needs strong foundations.
Without financial security, too many young people are held back from the start.
📈 Our new analysis shows that growing up in poverty *more than triples* the risk of being out of earning or learning.
Energy bills are far too high. (a🧵)
JRF’s Affordable Energy Guarantee would give every household a protected amount of cheaper energy, cutting bills now and protecting people from future shocks.
For lowest-income households, savings would be worth over a month’s free energy.
🚨 NEW!
Our report out today concludes rent controls can ease the pressure on renters, without jeopardising the private rented sector. A rent control could:
- Make renters nearly £1200 a year better off by 2030
- Reduce the housing benefit bill by £600m
Here's how 👇
The Health Foundation have now looked at how this compares with 20 other high-income countries: https://t.co/nn6Tq6OVza. Picture is grim. The UK saw the second biggest fall in healthy life expectancy over the decade to 2021, beaten only by the US.
How long have you got to live and live healthily? It’s well known that people in less deprived areas live longer. Let’s look at a boy born in 2023 in the most deprived tenth of areas. They can expect to live 10 years fewer than a boy born in the least deprived tenth of areas.
📢 We're hiring a new Principal Policy Adviser to lead our Work and Care policy areas!
Are you a visionary leader with the arguments, policies and ideas to address the challenges underpinning poverty in the UK?
We'd love to hear from you!
Apply here: https://t.co/PWLJNPwfM0
We may yet see a fall from 3.3% in the April data (out in May) because of falls in the April energy price cap, and falling wage growth and a fading impact from higher employer NICs driving down inflation in services. But sadly the predicted return to ~target level won't happen.
📉 Before the conflict in the Middle East, inflation was expected to fall to close to 2% in the middle of 2026.
Today's @ONS CPI figure for March shows things are moving in the opposite direction, and this is before the impact of higher energy prices hits household bills. 🧵
See a resurrected JRF chart showing how disappointing real wage growth has been since September 2024, compared to the year before then. And this is before any impacts from the Iran conflict. Earnings up £1.40/wk over last 17 months, compared to £11.60/wk up in the prev 12 months.
Regular wage growth in the three months to February 2026 was 3.6% excluding bonuses, down from 3.8% the previous period.
Including bonuses the rate was 3.8%, down from 4.1% in the previous period.
Read the release ➡ https://t.co/Q3xewe5pSt
@chrisbelfield These modelled estimates assume a lifetime in one deprivation decile. Moves between areas with different deprivation levels aren’t reflected. Notwithstanding this, gaps are very large, and the slope across deciles large too. H/T to @AnnaClarke_____ for clarification.
How long have you got to live and live healthily? It’s well known that people in less deprived areas live longer. Let’s look at a boy born in 2023 in the most deprived tenth of areas. They can expect to live 10 years fewer than a boy born in the least deprived tenth of areas.
Want to look at variation in life expectancy for someone your age/sex? Enter your details here to find out: https://t.co/djLYAgOSaD. Enter your postcode at https://t.co/SvQidVgK8W to find out what deprivation decile where you live falls into. H/T to @chrisbelfield for this.
Gaps in healthy life expectancy are even bigger. That same boy will have 19.4 fewer years of good health compared to someone born in the least deprived tenth of areas (it’s 20.3 years for girls).
It's a bit of a myth that rents are constantly increasing faster than earnings or overall inflation - on average, they're not.
So what *is* the problem of unaffordability in the private rented sector? And what does this mean for how we go about fixing it?
Our take 🧵⬇️