Finally – definitive evidence that Osborne’s budget is regressive
contribution by Nicola Smith
Today, End Child Poverty reports on new research, commissioned from the IFS, that shows definitively what many others have highlighted – the cuts announced in the Budget will hit families and the poorest the hardest.
As we showed immediately after the Budget, the Chancellor’s claim that the spending changes he announced were ‘progressive’ has always been contentious – significantly the Treasury’s modelling did not include a third of social security changes, including cuts to Housing Benefit and Disability Living Allowance, and only changes up until 2012/13 were considered.
This IFS research puts the Budget’s regressive impact beyond doubt: the poorest will be hit more than many of the richest in cash terms let alone as a percentage; poor and middle income families with children lose out more than any other household types and the very poorest families with children lose more than any other groups – with 5 per cent of their total income being cut.
(graph from IFS release)
The graph shows the effect of the tax and benefit reforms announced in the June Budget (to be introduced by April 2014) by income decile and household type. It makes the Budget’s impacts absolutely clear: the poorest families lose the most and the wealthiest the least.
And this is before the significant impact of cuts in public services has been considered.
Research undertaken for the TUC by Landman Economics and the Fabian Society has shown that the cuts the Coalition are proposing will lead to an average annual cut in public spending on the poorest tenth of households of £1,344, equivalent to 20.5 per cent of their household income, whereas the average annual cut in public spending on the richest tenth of households will be £1,135, equivalent to just 1.6 per cent of their household income.
Spending cuts on the scale that the Coalition is proposing simply cannot be achieved without the poorest being hardest hit – it’s time for the Government to stop pretending that the steepest cuts since WW2 are compatible with fairness.
Today, End Child Poverty reports on new research, commissioned from the IFS, that shows definitively what many others have highlighted – the cuts announced in the Budget will hit families and the poorest the hardest.
As we showed immediately after the Budget, the Chancellor’s claim that the spending changes he announced were ‘progressive’ has always been contentious – significantly the Treasury’s modelling did not include a third of social security changes, including cuts to Housing Benefit and Disability Living Allowance, and only changes up until 2012/13 were considered.
This IFS research puts the Budget’s regressive impact beyond doubt: the poorest will be hit more than many of the richest in cash terms let alone as a percentage; poor and middle income families with children lose out more than any other household types and the very poorest families with children lose more than any other groups – with 5 per cent of their total income being cut.
(graph from IFS release)
The graph shows the effect of the tax and benefit reforms announced in the June Budget (to be introduced by April 2014) by income decile and household type. It makes the Budget’s impacts absolutely clear: the poorest families lose the most and the wealthiest the least.
And this is before the significant impact of cuts in public services has been considered.
Research undertaken for the TUC by Landman Economics and the Fabian Society has shown that the cuts the Coalition are proposing will lead to an average annual cut in public spending on the poorest tenth of households of £1,344, equivalent to 20.5 per cent of their household income, whereas the average annual cut in public spending on the richest tenth of households will be £1,135, equivalent to just 1.6 per cent of their household income.
Spending cuts on the scale that the Coalition is proposing simply cannot be achieved without the poorest being hardest hit – it’s time for the Government to stop pretending that the steepest cuts since WW2 are compatible with fairness.
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