Don't envy the person writing the productivity down, wages up bit of the EFO

Found this piece about minimum wage catching up with entry level grad pay a bit odd. www.ft.com/content/b436... 1. Re min wage reducing incentive to go to uni. Yes at the margin, but I struggle to believe this can be a big effect? Going to uni raises lifetime earnings, not just at age 25.

Presumably Wales spared from this list due to the dragon protecting the hobbits

The Govt plans to make unfair dismissal protection a 'day one' right. I think it should keep qualifying periods but reduce to 3-6 months. Would keep most of the benefit of the Govt's plans but come with lower risk to hiring. I wrote about that here www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications...

Why do people *not* respond to the Labour Force Survey? For a while the biggest problem was thought to be failure to make contact with the sampled households. New data suggests by far the bigger problem - arguably more worrying - is people knowing they've been invited but refusing to take part.

New Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings data out this morning (data collected from an employer survey in April 2025). www.ons.gov.uk/releases/emp... Quick thread on main things I have taken from the data

Pretty chilling seeing this as a timelapse infographic/map www.slavevoyages.org/voyage/trans...

New ASHE data out. www.ons.gov.uk/releases/emp... From a quick look I think the new data doesn't change the outlook for the NLW (unlike last year, when a revision led to a bigger uprating). Relief for LPC. Basically no revision to the 2024 data, and 2025 growth in line with LPC expectations.

This made the radio 4 bulletin. So i think it's .. real 😮

£180k to tutor a one year old. Either a well written joke or something pretty astounding www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy...

Really saddened by this. Loved watching him www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/o...

Went to see Elis and John tonight and after about 8 years of listening it did feel significant

Main thing I took from Best of econtwitter today is that the whole of US economics still seems to be on twitter. Which is a shame

Can't believe someone a) had the data to write this paper b) wrote this paper www.nber.org/papers/w3434...

Good excuse to post one of my favourite silly skits youtube.com/clip/UgkxDZK...

I did music reviews a bit at Uni, so I know it's tricky to get the tone right, but this is quite something from Pitchfork

Have scored quite a few AI-ridden job applications so would like to applaud the person who went for "I'm not a rampant socialist" but "the wealth of the rich has been built on the blood and sweat of the workers"

Helpful and easy to read blog from ONS on their improvements to labour market stats. More of this kind of thing, please ! Couple of things to highlight blog.ons.gov.uk/2025/09/23/l...

The upcoming Budget presents various challenges. @ruthcurtice.bsky.social explains our recommendations for reform and revenue raising ⤵️

@adamcorlett.bsky.social's report on how to raise the tax needed in the upcoming budget is out, watch here www.resolutionfoundation.org/events/call-... Importantly, possibly the best RF report title since Richard Hughes' Britannia Waives the Rules. www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications...

Just got a monzo ping telling me my partner managed to spend £160 in Aldi. Hell of an effort! I assume they clapped her out of the shop

I'm delighted to announce the first close of the #WorkerTech Fund, the UK's first impact investment fund dedicated to improving low-paid work from Resolution Ventures. This builds on great work @resolutionfoundation over the last 5 years. Find out more: www.resolutionfoundation.org/comment/laun...

Today’s ONS data show a labour market continuing to cool, but there are signs of calming after a jobs crunch in the first part of 2025. Here is our thread (fom me and @charliemccurdy.bsky.social) Standout stat if you can't make it to the end: real wages haven't grown since October

Embarrassingly bad scenes on the bike paths in central London this morning. Cyclists riding through pedestrian crossings, riding to the front of queues blocking oncoming riders and even cars at times. The extra congestion today was from the normal tube users coming above ground ...

"PDF mill" is very funny www.economist.com/britain/2025...

IT'S OUT! @ukandeu.bsky.social brand new survey of the policy challenges confronting the UK, done in partnership with the wonderful @resfoundation.bsky.social ukandeu.ac.uk/reports/poli... 1/???

Something so weird about the phrase 'missiles start-up' www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Hot take not about minimum wages: the rectangle shapes are too big in the put-the-shape-through-the-relevant-hole toys. All the shapes fit through the rectangle hole

Post 2008 earnings growth is bad enough without using RPI to overstate it

The Government will struggle to reach its 80% employment target without getting more disabled people into work. Here’s a thread – based on today’s @resfoundation.bsky.social report with @benbgeiger.bsky.social – on how better employer incentives can help get us there...

My mate Dan is doing a comedy show about .. collecting price data, which was his job for 10 years. It's gonna be good! link.dice.fm/s15104dfd7aa

Govt are still yet to publish a new minimum wage 'remit' for the LPC. Currently there is no policy in place for 2026. The later they leave it the more likely I think they are to roll over this year's approach (i.e. track average earnings) but still not great to leave it so late.

@louisemurphy.bsky.social & @benbgeiger.bsky.social have a great new report on how to raise employment among disabled people. It's about employers, not benefits - a nice perspective shift from all the recent furore. www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications...

Our thread from this morning's stats. 👇 On the data, we think the employment rate is falling, as jobs fall and the population grows. The LFS currently says the opposite. ONS have improved the LFS a lot (more interviewers & more £ for respondents) but imv it's not yet a reliable guide to trends.

I know the Caro research thoroughness is a bit of a meme but ... just been surprised to find myself at the end of volume 1 of the LBJ biography because 26% of its 900 pages are notes and sources. 😂

Thanks to those who came along this morning, if you didn't I think worth your time to watch (vid is on the event page below). The panel was three people who really know the history and the detail, and what it takes to make a success of big reforms. Here are some points from the report

Our Low Pay Britain 2025 report focuses on the Govt's Employment Rights Bill www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications... We'll be discussing in 15 mins with Kate Bell, @recneil.bsky.social and @daznewman.bsky.social www.resolutionfoundation.org/events/new-d... Thread to come later

We got married two years ago. Last year I said happy anniversary, partner replied "of what?" 😂 This year I said happy anniversary, partner replied "you're a month early" (I was not a month early) 😂

That awkward thing where you write an annual report called 'Low Pay Britain' but 'low pay' has been all but eliminated (on the standard hourly pay < 2/3 median measure). (Our 2025 Low Pay Britain report is out on Thursday, launch event here www.resolutionfoundation.org/events/new-d... )

Looking forward to this!

Not yet been much argued about, but Govt wants to make young people ineligible for incapacity bens. Louise shows there hasn't been an increase in young claimants. Means Govt's arguments for removing eligibility need to be based on "that number should be zero" not "the numbers are getting worse"

As Parliament prepares to vote tomorrow on cuts to PIP and UC-Health, the Govt consultation on longer-term changes to the benefits system also closes. A thread on the good, the bad and the messy included in the consultation... www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications...

If UK struggles to build it doesn't look like it's the builders. Getting our loft done has been very impressive. 3 weeks in and they're 80% done. 2-3 different trades in some days and there have been no missed days. Roofing materials this morning delivered 10 mins before the roofers turned up.

15 years as a professional office person and it has only just occured to me that you get paid for toil with TOIL. Was that deliberate?

My Dad looking pretty cool yesterday playing some songs for his brother's 70th birthday. Something tells me my son is unlikely to be as impressed at my chart-making abilities when he's older as I am by my Dad's music.

Today I learned: UK employers have to follow a 'fair and objective' way of deciding who gets made redundant amid multiple redundancies. 'Last in, first out' is explicitly considered both fair and objective. Obviously objective, but fair?? Doesn't it work against young? www.gov.uk/redundancy-y...

Just been to see Waxahatchee and they were incredible but, ridiculous as it seems to say it, almost.. too good. In the sense that close your eyes and you could have been listening to the album.

This morning’s labour market stats mark another month of a weakening jobs market and slowing pay growth. Thread and charts from me and @nyecominetti.bsky.social...

First line of this abstract sounds like it was written by someone whose partner told them they needed to do the nursery pick up later but they could swear that conversation never happened www.nber.org/papers/w3387...

That poverty-offsetting employment effect from the disability benefit cuts in full 👇 Less flippantly, there's a lot of uncertainty in these numbers, and emp effects being small isn't in and of itself an argument against doing the reforms. But it was part of the Govt's defence of the reforms.