Who should own the value of land?
New report by Ed Shepherd and myself on the political economy of land value capture. A major research undertaking (incl 50 interviews) examining the power relations that structure how land values are (unjustly) distributed in England.
@housingevidence.bsky.social
For 18-20 year olds the minimum wage has increased by 26% since Labour took office
'Modestly raising' the minimum wage = 11.1% increase in 2 years when the level was already at 61% of average wages vs 'hikes in the minimum wage' = 7.7% increase in 2 years when Spain's was only at 53.4% in 2024. Main differences between Sanchez & Starmer are migration & foreign policy not economics
You must’ve gone to the only Indian!
It’s a typo, so red means more Chinese restaurants
Keeping social democracy on life support with a variety of financial wheezes
The fact that people can't see this is the biggest indictment of the whole student loan system. That lowering the interest rate and increasing the repayment period has almost been portrayed as an improvement
NEW ISSUE: Renewal 33/3&4
Guest co-edited by @neilwarner.bsky.social & @beccagold.bsky.social, this special double issue features nineteen (19) brilliant essays analysing Labour's statecraft and debating the strategic challenges for social democracy in Britain and beyond
The problem is we have step marking for each individual assignment in a given unit. So you end up with an average of stepped marks across all the units you do. I do think it is a better system but it doesn't really avoid the boundary issues re: degree classification
If family of four means four children and all four are 14+ you basically get there
I feel uncomfortable making this point too strongly because it relies on the existence of the benefit cap which I’d want removed too. But feels like a point a median voter sensitive government should have been banging on about in prep for the policy change
NEW! How should Labour respond to the two key issues to voters of the economy and immigration and what are the electoral stakes this week of the budget?
Read on for our answer...
@nprcoxford.bsky.social @jrf-uk.bsky.social
New Publication with @lhaffert.bsky.social in @ejprjournal.bsky.social!
We study the role of generations in the urban-rural divide, which is increasingly shaping the politics of many democracies.
Studying Switzerland, we show: The urban-rural divide is stronger among younger generations. (1/10) 🧵👇
So deep was the fiscal crisis that the government slashed taxes on low and middle income workers
From @philipjcowley.bsky.social - thanks to a happy coincidence we have a much more rigorous than usual understanding of the impact of Keir Starmer's "Island of Strangers" speech. As Cowley puts it "It is not obvious this was the intended outcome"
That would be committing to the triple lock for at least another few decades
In order to save any meaningful amount of money, a means test would effectively be a tax targeted at middle income pensioners. If you want to claw back the cost of the pension in a progressive way you should increase tax that will continue to affect the richest pensioners not means test
Freezing of thresholds since has somewhat reversed this but in 2020 average tax rates including Plan 2 student loan repayments (the loans that will mostly never get paid off and so more plausibly defined as taxes) were lower for the median employee than at any point in history even before loans
Tbf for the median earner it’s about 3pp more and it’s a kinder student loan system than US/Canada IMO
And UC shows the inherent trade offs you face with marginal rates. Lowering the taper rate has just drawn more and more people into benefits, extending high marginal rates to more households and making it more expensive to increase generosity at the bottom end
I agree they both matter but I’m not exercised in terms of it high marginal rates being inherently unfair more just distortionary
The policy is stupid and child benefit should just be universal again but IMO the problem is incentives at those points rather than distributive justice/fairness given no one below 100k actually gets more than half their income taxed
It’s got lower since charge got spread out over 20k (which I’m not convinced is better) c.54% for 2 children or 63% with a student loan as well
Seems odd that the bump is just over 50k because to me the biggest disincentive is not so much the actual marginal rate but the cognitive load of doing the tax return
Between country inequality is stark but I don't think there's evidence it has risen in the last 40-50 years wir2022.wid.world/chapter-2/
Article says that *temporary accommodation* accounts for over 80% of homelessness, not the UK (which would be absurd)
Wonder if there’s a more surefire way to get research shared on Bluesky than to paint Musk or his businesses in a bad light
Today's stories saying the unemployment rate has risen from 4.6 to 4.7% tell only part of the story. The same data - the Labour Force Survey - shows this rise comes from more people who were inactive starting to look for work and so being classified as unemployed, which is good news 🧵 /1
Not really sure what the balancing of rights and responsibilities has to do with it. Voting is a right and a responsibility. All of the things you name are similar. So your argument is more that you should get the rights and responsibilities in different spheres of life at exactly the same time