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.

Thread from this morning's stats below. We've also now updated the web page where you can see & download our alternative employment rate estimates. Our estimates are now close to the LFS but give a v diff picture of the trend over the last few years. www.resolutionfoundation.org/our-work/est...

Today’s labour market statistics show employment continuing to weaken and tentative signs that this is feeding into slowing pay growth, though this is more uncertain. Here is our thread with the key charts, from me and @hannahslaughter.bsky.social

Couple of points on "ending" overseas recruitment for care jobs. 1. Important to remember that reality has already moved on from the very high migration levels of 2022-2023. Cleverly's policy changes already hugely reduced care visa numbers (chart from @healthfoundation.bsky.social)

🚨We have today published our alternative employment rate estimates (developed by @adamcorlett.bsky.social). You can download the data. We provide a methodology as well as an FAQ - genuinely keen to hear any feedback. We plan to update this every month. www.resolutionfoundation.org/our-work/est...

Somewhere way down the bottom on the list of reasons why Trump turning the US into a fascist state is bad is the fact that we don't get to spend time laughing at his fake tan any more. A classic face vs hand colour pic here www.ft.com/content/1ae7...

A sad/bizarre black mirror esque moment. Mindless youtube scrolling brought up a 'funny' video of my actual aunt (who is very learning disabled) distressed and shouting on a bus. Wish people could be kinder. More happily, I'm looking forward to taking her out for her birthday lunch this weekend.

Nice pro worker dynamism from @timleunig.bsky.social: reduce impact of notice periods by making emps match new job salary for duration of notice period (in hope they let worker go sooner). timleunig.substack.com/p/building-a...

Thanks to some promptly submitted FOIs, we now know a bit more about the impact of the recently-announced PIP cuts, where those awarded less than 4 points in all daily living activities will be affected. As of Jan 2025, almost half (46%) of PIP recipients do not meet the 4 points requirement.

Does anyone know where this combined letter re emp reforms from all the UK's business lobby groups was published? I can't find it on the CBI or BCC's press release pages www.ft.com/content/7225...

My partner is looking for a new job (expects hers to end) and manages 1-2 applications per week. And that's tiring! But UC expects claimants to apply for jobs literally 35 hrs/week. That's ... unrealistic! And impossible to enforce? So in practice it's more a signal about demonstrating effort?

Crazy tension levels for the second leg of a 3-0

If/when OBR finally downgrade their medium-term growth forecasts, will Govt's borrowing costs .. - fall: markets expect BoE rates to fall in response to tighter fiscal policy (assuming fiscal rules stuck to) - rise: markets think Govt's fiscal position worse because OBR says so (assume not!)

Giusto de' Menabuoi: ok guys, quick snap? Christ: hang on hang on I'm not ready yet! Mary: good Lord why does it always take forever to get a simple photo 🙄

This report was an incredible undertaking from @emilyfry.bsky.social @zackleather.bsky.social and @camronaref.bsky.social - adding up the in-kind value of public services to individual households, to be able to offer distributional analysis of public spending choices (to rival the Treasury's..). 👏

Man in the pub just stood on the bar and bought himself two pints to celebrate that second Rice goal

US hugely outpaced other rich countries since 2020: @simonpittaway.bsky.social report explores why. Lessons: stimulus helped, and policy should favour investment and fast growth firms, not (necessarily) small ones www.resolutionfoundation.org/events/a-lea... @jasonfurman.bsky.social discussing now

Nice thread from Dan. Would like it if more MPs said things like "look at this beautiful tram" 😍