Yesterday’s budget failed to deliver the help that the UK’s hard pressed households need
This was a Budget that delivered rising living standards to those who are already well off.
Nicola Smith
Website Nicola writes for Left Foot Forward on labour market issues. She is the Head of the Economic and Social Affairs Department at the TUC - and is a member of the Social Security Advisory Committee - and also writes at Touchstone.
The chancellor’s plan has failed and we are all paying the price
Within just three months the OBR’s forecast for growth in 2013 has been halved. The economy now looks set to be smaller at the time of the next election than it was when the crash hit in 2008 and our recovery remains the slowest in over a century. When the government took office they thought this year would see the economy expand by 2.9 per cent – their own forecasts now show we won’t reach that rate of growth by 2017.
The economic case for a new approach has never been stronger.
It is time to debate a new economy
It has been two years since George Osborne proposed an ‘enterprise-led recovery’, but the economy has in no way recovered.
The Right’s prescription of more of the same ignores the evidence
Just as it is becoming clearer that Osbornomics doesn’t work, Tory think tanks are pushing for even more of the same, writes the TUC’s Nicola Smith.
Tax credit cuts mean working families are worse off
Nicola Smith takes the Treasury and the coalition government to task for tax changes that will hurt working families.
Toby Young is wrong about the cuts and wrong about the march
Writing on the Telegraph website yesterday, Toby Young accused the TUC of “a ceaseless barrage of propaganda” about the cuts. Nicola Smith explains why he is wrong.
Labour market stats reveal high unemployment and an uncertain outlook
Today’s figures show that while the recession technically ended over a year ago the period November-January 2011 saw unemployment hit its highest level since October 1994 – 2,529,000 people.
Misleading to claim welfare reform will cut child poverty levels
Making hundreds of thousands of families poorer, and then making some a little better off, does not count as a child poverty reduction plan, writes Nicola Smith.
‘Simplification’ leads to severely disabled young people’s benefits being cut
Yesterday’s Welfare Reform Bill contains huge changes for the UK’s social security system – as well as a number of damaging new sanctions and fines, reports Nicola Smith.
The IoD are wrong: there is no quick fix for the UK economy
Todays Institute of Directors “Freebie Growth Plan” report is wrong; if implemented, the measures they propose would lead to considerable losses for most taxpayers.