Britain’s Mittelstand: Stop overlooking the squeezed middle of UK business September 24, 2014 PARTY conference season is in full swing, with politicians honing their soundbites for the coming general election. Many will have heard of “the squeezed middle”, used to refer to the middle classes who have been caught by the rising cost of living and stagnant wage growth. But the term could apply equally to the business [...]
How long would it take Europe’s minimum wage employees to buy a Big Mac? September 22, 2014 Ed Miliband has announced that a Labour government would raise the minimum wage to £8.00 by 2020 if it came to power. The current lower bound is £6.31, which will increase to £6.50 on 1 October, so the proposed hike would be a dramatic increase. If the bank of England were to average [...]
Ed Miliband promises minimum wage rise should Labour win next general election September 21, 2014 Ed Miliband has promised an increase in the national minimum wage to £8 per hour should his party win at the next general election. The Labour leader has said it is "not good enough" that one in five people in the UK "are in low pay". Ahead of the Labour party conference in Manchester this week, [...]
Could Labour be set to make a big announcement on low pay at its party conference? September 18, 2014 Tackling low pay has been a central policy theme for Labour while in opposition, and it’s not hard to see why. While the economy is growing, wages aren’t rising in real-terms and people don’t feel better off. Ed Miliband knows this and has sought to focus his party’s strategy on the cost of living crisis [...]
Planning liberalisation is the closest thing there is to an economic silver bullet September 15, 2014 WITH low productivity, high inflation and terrible industrial relations, in 1977, Britain was a basket case. So that year, businessman John Hoskyns decided to dedicate substantial effort to analysing the UK’s economic problems. The result was a flow diagram, which sought to trace out the fundamental causes of the malaise. Hoskyns’s work pinned the blame [...]
In charts: Half of women don’t have private pensions September 11, 2014 Despite the maximum state pension being only £113.10 a week, just under half the people in the UK don't pay into a private pension scheme. This includes a third of employees – half of the self-employed and 80 per cent of unemployed people are also without a plan. The data was published by the Office [...]
Low pay and precarious employment: How the beauty industry scars young women for life August 31, 2014 The career prospects of young women are being hindered by their tendency to apply to oversubscribed and often poorly paid jobs in industries such as hair and beauty, according to a report by the Young Women's Trust. Called “Scarred for life?”, it shows that there are currently 418,000 women in England aged 18-24 who [...]
Forward guidance: A political gambit that has retarded true capitalism August 18, 2014 IT’S A mistake to try and get too precise,” suggested Stanley Fischer last September, shortly before he was appointed vice chairman of the Federal Reserve. “You can’t expect the Fed to spell out what it’s going to do. Why? Because it doesn’t know.” Bank of England governor Mark Carney may now be wishing he had [...]
In graphs: UK is “halfway to recovery” says Carney August 17, 2014 Britain's economy is "more than halfway towards the finish line" Bank of England governor Mark Carney has said, with the UK economy expected to grow by 3.5 per cent this year. Perhaps more poignantly for those looking for hints as to an interest rate rise, Carney also indicated he wouldn't necessarily wait until wages caught up [...]
Falling unemployment vs stagnant wages: Jobs market to dominate 2015 general election August 13, 2014 The battle lines for next year’s election were drawn yesterday as the Conservatives and Labour clashed over their differing views of the latest figures on the recovery. Britain’s tumbling rate of unemployment has given the government a boost ahead of the vote on 7 May next year – but Labour is stressing the stagnant level [...]