Pleased to put out this new analysis with @maxmosley.bsky.social into the deeper barriers UK workers face in getting sustainable jobs, with genuine progression opportunities and proper in-work support - including first-ever data on the job quality of people on Universal Credit.👇

NEW: Our latest analysis suggests strict conditions faced by people in receipt of benefits are forcing them into low quality jobs. This risks undermining the government's employment targets, as people forced into low-paid, insecure jobs are less likely to stay in work.

Frustrated but hardly surprised by this growing build up of child benefit mishandling cases. They reflect systemic issues with the way our welfare services engage with claimants. No prior engagement re issues. No chance to correct bad data. Just automatic suspension of payments (1/2)

A pretty hefty piece of @neweconomics.bsky.social analysis out today by me & @pollardtom.bsky.social, in collaboration with @jrf-uk.bsky.social, on the problems with free hours-based childcare system Labour inherited - & case for a more progressive alternative 👇[1/] neweconomics.org/2025/07/the-...

NEW: There’s been a lot of discussion lately about rising graduate unemployment. I dug a little closer and a striking story emerged: Unemployment is climbing among young graduate *men*, but college-educated young women are generally doing okay. www.ft.com/content/a9ea...

Refreshing piece here on complexity of graduate job market, going beyond just blaming 'AI'. Quite like this (👇) on health/care sector - you see a similar picture in UK occupational growth projections. Unsurprising if you think about it given ageing pop, but lost amidst tech-focussed policy debate!

The updated poverty impact assessment for the disability benefits cuts once again offsets the impact of not proceeding with the previous government's proposed changes to the WCA The impact of actual changes happening in the real world is likely to be closer to 250k people pushed into poverty

We've seen alarming trends in in-work poverty in the UK - despite rises in the Living Wage. I've written a piece for @lsepoliticsblog.bsky.social looking at the role 'good work' can play in tackling this, based on @neweconomics.bsky.social analysis: blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp... [1/2]

Ok so yeah, this has quickly become the #1 misunderstanding about the canceled grants the grants are not “subsidies” or “entitlements” to Harvard or Princeton or whatever they aren’t going into universities’ endowments they are competitive contracts won by these universities to do research

This, from a DWP press release yesterday (gov.uk/government/n...), is outrageous In two short paragraphs it peddles multiple falsehoods about the current system that will be used to justify upcoming cuts & changes Here's what MPs & journalists should be challenging... 🧵

Pleased to see the launch of the first output from our @irhws.bsky.social project today, exploring disabled workers' experiences of remote & hybrid working and putting forward a number of policy recommendations for the government. Thread below on some of our key findings 👇

Interesting piece. There's a related but different point which sounds techy but matters. Under UC those without kids & not on UC-health (though many will still have a health condition) don't receive a 'work allowance'. Which makes p/t work much less attractive than it should be....

Civil servant source says DOGE has made agencies much less efficient: "Work has ground down to a stunning degree and management is spending a significant amount of time responding & preparing to respond to the chaos incited by the never ending barrage of EOs & accompanying memos" Many make no sense🧵

Why do we see so few working class and ethnic minority young people in professional jobs? Important new @nuffieldfoundation.org funded research using large-scale employer data sheds new light on the processes through which these inequalities arise.

1/ The rocketing Council Tax burden at the bottom of the income distribution quietly recreating the worst problems of the Poll Tax www.resolutionfoundation.org/comment/risi...

I’m not keen on the framing of this story, which veers at least close to blaming Rayner for not reporting the messages about herself in 2022. Let’s not pretend that for women reporting sexist abuse about yourself is some kind of risk free exercise www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Here we see a slightly different UK pattern: young men appear more liberal than they used to be, but women becoming more so [this is 'two-speed liberalisation' in the UK vs 'polarisation' in the US/South Korea]. But nb the indicator here is patterns of party support so unpicking this tricky

This is why you don't design curricula around "jobs of the future". We can't predict the future but we do know what general skills and knowledge will be valuable whatever job you do.

Great article from @lizziedearden.bsky.social on the Single Justice Procedure, which now accounts for more than half of all criminal cases. Vast majority have no representation for the defendant and they can be decided in under a minute - w/ lifelong consequences. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01...

Some people in recent days have alleged a ‘cover-up’ over the grooming & rape of hundreds of young girls in predominantly northern UK towns, leading to calls for a ‘national’ public inquiry into child sexual exploitation FWIW here’s a non-exhaustive list of inquiries into #CSE in last 12 yrs…

Christopher Hood has died today. Public administration has lost one of its absolute best. RIP

Big shout out to the 36% of Lib Dem voters who don't have a favourable view of liberalism.

Storytime. In 2005, my mom died from cancer, but the real cause was the actions taken by an insurance company 12 years earlier. What happened to her was evil, hard to identify or fight, and hidden from the public by legal mechanisms. Because of that, I have no idea how often it has happened.

Relatedly, what is mithering me about a lot of the commentary around the “six milestones” are the comparisons with Sunak’s 5 pledges that proceed as if the shortcoming of the pledges was that voters don’t like numbered lists anymore rather than “you do actually need to achieve the pledges”.

A remarkable stat: Heidi Alexander’s appointment as Transport Secretary means the cabinet is now 100% state-educated for the first time in history.

It looks like there'll be lots to welcome in the government's plans for improving employment support (despite unhelpful noise about 'cracking down') @neweconomics.bsky.social has been leading calls for a shift from compliance to engagement, but it won't come easily...🧵 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Really thought-provoking piece, this. 👇 However I'd suggest some of debate unhelpfully confusing 2nd Reading with "passing a bill." Liberty want more + longer consensus-building (fair): but wouldn't giving it a Committee Stage facilitate exactly that? (N.B: I'm still unsure on Bill, regardless)

I think this is an excellent read. Perhaps it’s cowardly to say I’m glad I don’t have to vote on this bill — like many disabled people, I have very complex feelings in this issue.

Lots of helpful detail here on the Get Britain Working white paper: youth guarantee, localised employment support pilots, less of the tick box in jobcentres and more personalised focus. 🧵 1/3 www.personneltoday.com/hr/get-brita...

A bit late to today's news, but I always liked this '07 BBC retelling of John P's time serving Anthony Eden on an ocean liner in '57. I'm sure Eden would've never imagined the waiter would not only become Deputy PM - but achieve far more in Govt than he ever did. #RIP www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

V important from Adam 👇 UK's employment rate might actually NOT be down on pre-pandemic levels. There is still uncertainty but personally I am now more prepared to believe this than the LFS, which describes a UK post-pandemic participation hit unique among rich countries.

Despite a massive head start, BlueSky has now overtaken Threads in the US 👇

How politics is distorting economic data - really interesting column here from Paul Donovan of UBS. In particular, partisanship is skewing influential surveys of consumer and business sentiment. Remarkable chart. www.ft.com/content/1ec7...

Heads up, the DWP's next release of employment figures (5 Nov) for disabled people will include info on job quality. This is a really good thing, as there's not only an employment gap, but also a pay gap and an insecure work gap — really important to track those differential outcomes.

Gavin’s essay contains this perfect articulation of a key AI problem. And many other insights, so you should read it!

The Economist has published a deeply-researched story about car bloat -- and it's very, very damning. "For every life that the heaviest 1% of SUVs and trucks save, there are more than a dozen lives lost in other vehicles." Well worth your time: www.economist.com/interactive/...

This has received less attention than it should, because the overall result was in line with expectations. But in a closer contest an error of this scale would be enough to deliver a surprise outcome (as it did in 1992 & 2015) - something to remember if polls are narrower ahead of the next election

“The area of Greater London given over to golf courses is vast. If golf courses were a London Borough in their own right, it would be the 15th largest; bigger than Brent… Golf takes up 17% of all of the available green space in London.” Fascinating analysis 👉 golfbelt.russellcurtis.co.uk

This Wendy Cope poem is new to me. It’s quietly magnificent.

Always have a coder eyeball your fundraising emails.

Great thread below on the philosophical roots of Harris' / Walz' framing of "freedom". 👇 Hard agree. Can trace it back to Isaiah Berlin's distinction between negative ("freedom from") vs. positive ("freedom to") liberty. Too much modern debate frames freedom exclusively in negative terms.

Counter-point: surely for analogy to work said calculator would've needed to serve earlier students the *formulas* as well as crunch the numbers? Hence maybe LLM *is* uniquely bad because students can copy 100% w/ zero engagement, in ways old tech (eg Google) couldn't quite due to eg Turnitin? 1/2

Amazing chart. And it was already too low in 2009.

Good article & striking stat: Employment rates for 25-34s & 35-49s already well above 80%. Vs compared to 50.8% for 16-24-year-olds & 70.6% for 50-64-year-olds. Government will need to focus on 50+ as well as young people to meet their goal.

Really welcome to see this change in rhetoric when it comes to the employment support system, which in it's present form doesn't work for either workers or employers (link in the comment below to my previous research exploring this). The proof, however, will be in the (policy) pudding.

UK could unlock huge benefits by breaking down the silos between government departments and linking data across services. The pandemic showed the power of shared data—could be applied beyond emergencies, part. as the quality of household surveys diminishes. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/arti...

(figured out how to thread...) 📢New WP!📢 The Class Gap in Career Progression: Evidence from US Academia, w/ Kyra Rodriguez Class is rarely a focus of research or DEI in elite US occupations. Evidence suggests it should be: we find a large class gap in at least one occupation - academia...🧵

Dreamt I was on a bus, next to two cabinet Ministers who were sitting together. I said to one that I’d met her before, and she said “can you help us with the crossword?” I asked her the clue, and she said “fruity duck” and I said “mandarin”, and she said “it’s only four letters”. #needaholiday