Eduin Latimer

Here it is, my magnum opus: an analysis of what’s wrong with the UK’s approach to fiscal policy (under this and previous governments), and a proposal for what an alternative to pass-fail fiscal rules could look like.

I’ll follow up with a longer thread later.

Scotland benefits from free university tuition, free personal care services, and smaller class sizes than England. Why? Because the Scottish Government receives 26% more funding per resident than is spent in England on comparable services. This funding advantage is now being (very) gradually eroded.

An excellent and much-needed explainer of our complicated and controversial student loans system

Low Pay Commission Report 2025 The Low Pay Commission's annual report sets out in full the evidence and analysis which informed recommendations for minimum wage rates from April 2026.

You can find the report here: www.gov.uk/government/p...

The @lowpaycommission.bsky.social annual report is out. As always contains lots of insights. This is key chart for me: 20% of jobs are now paid within £1 of the minimum wage, up from 14% in 2015. Whatever you think of the minimum wage, its increasingly important!

Great to make first appearance on IFS Zooms In Pod. @helenmiller.bsky.social and I were joined by the excellent @alanmanning4.bsky.social to talk about what's happened to to the UK minimum wage, and what impact its having on the UK labour market. Give it a listen.

Here's a starter pack of IFS economists posting on BlueSky. Make sure you're following them all for the top-quality economic analysis on labour markets, inequality, public finances, healthcare, education and more! go.bsky.app/NYPwMB

New ONS public finance data today shows central government revenues are still lagging significantly below March expectations.

Given inflation has been higher than forecast, this is surprising - even VAT receipts, which one might expect to rise with inflation, are below forecast

They also provide some insight into the recent surge in disability benefit claims. Our results provide some suggestive evidence that rising cost-of-living is one factor behind the recent surge in disability benefit claims.

Our results are important for benefit design. Policy makers should account for the indirect effect of changing one bit of the benefit system on other bits of the system.

Great to get this new research out. We find that following cuts to non-health benefit income cause more people to claim disability benefits.

NEW: Cuts to non-health-related benefits caused increases in disability benefit claims, our new report finds.

📗 Jonathan Cribb, @heidikarj.bsky.social, @eduinlatimer.bsky.social, Sam Ray-Chaudhuri and Tom Waters examine the impact of four cuts to benefits in the 2010s [THREAD:🧵]:

The government has announced it intends to abolish the two-child limit, at a cost of £3bn according to @OBR_UK.

This is one of the most cost-effective levers the government has to achieve a quick reduction in child poverty, given the high poverty rates among larger families.

#Budget2025

If there were an election tomorrow, more net tax increases would have been announced in this parliament than in any other since at least 1970.

#Budget2025

While @lowpaycommission.bsky.social have closely monitored recent increases and found no clear evidence of negative employment effects, recent falls in employment in low-paid sectors such as hospitality make this is a riskier time to raise minimum wage rates than some recent years.

Minimum wages for younger workers are also set to grow faster than the 21+ rate as the Government moves towards its commitment to equalise the 18-20 minimum wage rate to the 21+ minimum wage.

The Government has announced that the adult minimum wage will increase by 4.1% to £12.71. This is likely to be faster than inflation and average earnings growth. The UK’s minimum wage is already one of the highest amongst developed countries and this will push it higher.

Chart shows percentage of 55- to 64-year-old women experiencing depressive symptoms, by third of the wealth distribution, 2002–03 to 2023–24. Title states: "39% of the poorest third of 55- to 64-year-old women reported depressive symptoms in 2023–24, compared to 10% of the wealthiest third."

NEW: Depressive symptoms have risen among women in their late 50s and early 60s, particularly among the least wealthy women.

📗 @beeboileau.bsky.social and Jonathan Cribb's new report examines health, wealth and employment in the run-up to the state pension age: [THREAD]

You can also watch back to our event discussing the report with valuable comments from
@ruthpatrick0.bsky.social here: ifs.org.uk/events/why-d...

Support for children with disabilities and special educational needs | Institute for Fiscal Studies How do trends, demographics and outcomes of children receiving support for health conditions compare across the benefits and education systems?

For lots more detail and interesting facts you can read the green budget chapter here: ifs.org.uk/publications...

And this is a growing issue. The share of children getting high-level targeted support for additional needs has doubled across both the benefit and education systems.

New work out on children receiving support for disabilities in school and/or benefit system.

50% of children with most severe needs aged 15 were not in work, education or training (NEET) aged 22.

Improving outcomes for this group is vital if gov wants to cut NEET rate

Chart shows share of under 16s on disability benefits and share of pupils with high-level special educational support. Title states: "The share of children receiving high-level special educational support and the share on disability benefits have both doubled in the past decade."

NEW: The share of children receiving disability support and the share on high-level special educational support have both doubled since 2016.

THREAD on @eduinlatimer.bsky.social, @lukesibieta.bsky.social and Darcey Snape's IFS Green Budget chapter, funded by @nuffieldfoundation.org:

Three years on from Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng's mini budget, I've written for @theobserveruk.bsky.social about its legacy and the lessons the Chancellor, her team and her backbench MPs (including would-be MPs) should keep in mind this autumn.

This point is especially important.

Educational attainment gaps between richer and poorer children are well documented.

Despite the two-child limit substantially reducing larger families' incomes, our new research finds it had no effect on the school readiness of affected children:

[THREAD:🧵]

When and how should the government protect existing claimants from benefit cuts? | Institute for Fiscal Studies Important trade-offs are involved when designing transitional protections for benefit cuts.

Final note: long-lasting protections for existing claimants are not unique to this government. There are many previous reforms where governments faced similar trade-offs. We discuss them in the comment: ifs.org.uk/articles/whe...

We think the case for transitional protections tends to become weaker the longer they last. We therefore think there’s a case for looking at putting a time limit on these transitional protections. This time limit could be long so protections last years without being permanent.

The second big downside is that it can create perverse incentives. In this case, it reduces the incentive for existing claimants to end their claim, for instance by looking for work. The OBR estimate that 30,000 fewer people will end their UC Health claims due to these protections.

However, there are downsides to transitional protections too. First, they can lead to treating very similar claimants differently. In this case, two people with the exact same level of disability will receive very different levels of support based on the precise date they started their claim.

There is a strong case for providing transitional protections. Adjusting to immediate cuts in income is particularly hard as some types of spending (such as rental contracts) are hard to adjust quickly. Transitional protections can make adjusting to an income cut easier.