Some fiscal charts on today's #SpringStatement 🧵- The Chancellor benefitted from a significant improvement in the underlying fiscal outlook, with the OBR expecting cumulative borrowing over the forecast to be over £42bn lower (in today's prices) than expected back in October.
In line with the fall in borrowing, government debt is also forecast to be lower throughout the forecast, with it now expected to fall below 80 per cent of GDP by 2026-27.
The Chancellor has decided to 'spend' only a minority of the improvement in the fiscal outlook on tax cuts. In 2026-27, the OBR project underlying borrowing to be £15bn lower than previously forecast, while new policies add just £3bn to borrowing.
Despite cuts to income tax rates and rise in NICs threshold taxes are still projected to rise as a share of the economy. Government receipts are projected to hit 40% by 2026-27, the highest since 1982 – equating to additional revenue of over £3,000 per household compared to 2019
The Chancellor has left himself significant headroom against his fiscal rules – debt is projected to fall by 1% of GDP in 2024-25. This should allow the government to loosen fiscal policy if the economy deteriorates further.
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Since 1997 earnings have doubled, while house prices have increased *4.5 times*.
Our Research Director Lindsay Judge spoke to @BBCr4today this morning about the state of British housing 🏡🧵
Our current housing crisis is decades in the making.
The UK is not alone in considering itself in the midst of a crisis, but our cramped and ageing housing offers the worst value for money of any advanced economy.
Looking at 'imputed rents' of homeowners as well as actual rents, we spend more on housing than almost every other rich country.
Back for more? - the Resolution Foundation overnight analysis of the 2024 Spring Budget is out now!
To whet your appetite ahead of reading the full report, here's a six-chart thread with a few of the key highlights....
⬇️⬇️⬇️resolutionfoundation.org/publications/b…
1) Filling out the tax sandwich.
A net tax cut of £9 billion is taking effect in the election year. But this is dwarfed by the estimated £27 billion of tax rises that came into effect last year (2023-24) and the £19 billion that are coming in after the election (2025-27).
2) Shifting state support from the rich to the poor.
RF analysis of all major tax and benefit policies announced in this parliament show finds that typical households are set to gain £420 a year on average, while the poorest fifth gain £840 and the richest fifth lose £1,500.
Kicking off our event @_louisemurphy says that Britain has a youth mental health crisis. One-in-three 18-24-year-olds report having a common mental disorder, rising two-in-five young women.
This is having real-world impacts.
On health, more than half a million 18-24-year-olds were prescribed anti-depressants in 2021-22.
And on the labour market, people in their early 20s are now more likely to be economically inactive due to ill-health than those in their early 40s. This is a big shift over the past 25 years...
The chancellor has gone for broke on pre-election giveaways. Meanwhile, households are broke, after getting £1,900 poorer over the course of this parliament.
💸 Pre-election tax-cuts today rest on implausible spending cuts tomorrow
💼Well-targeted policies to address tax system bias were welcome
✋As are steps to encourage business investment (but undercut by deeper cuts to public investment)
First up, some of the pain has been delayed.
The @OBR_UK shifted slow economic growth into the future.
The UK economy was more resilient than expected this year (growth revised ⬆️from -0.2% to 0.6%), but things look worse next year (growth revised ⬇️from 1.8% to 0.7%).
Speaking at our event, Mary Starks of @FlintGlobal highlights the centrality of moderning our power and water infrastructure for our net zero transition. Regulators will play a key role in driving these changes (and will inevitably be unpopular for doing it!)
Mary highlights a key challenge - we know we need to invest a LOT to modernise our infrastructure. But we don't know what investments will actuallly pay off. That's a key challenge for both investors and policy makers...
Another big infrastrucuture challenge - persuading investors that projects will pay off over a 30-50 year period, and won't be pushed off course by electoral cycles. This is a big task for regulators overseeing these projects, and is getting harder as the scale of need grows.
Today’s migration statistics confirm that post-Brexit migration change has been big – but some of the change is different to what many of us expected... summary 🧵 from RF's @charliejmccurdy ⬇️
The latest migration data for the year ending December 2022 showed that overall net migration rose to 606,000 – driven primarily by non-EU migration (662,000).
Among non-EU migrants, the most common reasons for coming to the UK were to study (39%) to work (25%) or for humanitarian reasons (19%). The recent rise has been driven by unique factors, such as the Ukraine war and the end of Covid-19 restrictions (more students arrived).