Work on income and poverty

As poverty adviser to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation from 1998 to 2008, and since then as Head of Income Studies and (since 2012) Director of the Centre for Research in Social Policy , I have been analysing what incomes people in Britain need in order to participate in society, and what public policies are needed for this to come about.

Most recently this has involved looking at:
- What minimum incomes people need
- What would actually have to happen for the government to meet its objective of ending child poverty

Earlier work for JRF:
- Analysed the new system of tax credits
- Argued for "welfare beyond work"
- Looked ahead 20 years in how to tackle social disadvantage
- Looked at how other European countries approached social protection

In 2006, I challenged Tony Blair to take a wider view of poverty and its causes, in a warm-up talk to his York lecture on social exclusion. (My speech 4 mins 19 secs into this clip).

Between 1998 and 2008 I reported every Budget in the New Statesman, focusing on issues around income and poverty.

My 2004 article for Prospect Magazine put recent trends in poverty and inequality into a historic context.