Report on Poverty and Inequality in the UK

A new report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies on Poverty and Inequality in the UK (supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation) for the period 1997-2011 finds that although income inequality increased during the New Labour period it would have increased further without discretionary changes to taxes and benefits; the increase in inequality was also much smaller than the rise in inequality during the 1980s. While recent changes to the tax and benefit system may reduce income inequality by hitting those on high incomes hardest, the report finds that new cuts to benefits and tax credits are likely to counter this and increase inequality on an ongoing basis: http://www.ifs.org.uk/comms/comm118.pdf