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This Joseph Rowntree study looks at the impact of taxes and benefits over time. It analyses changes in tax and benefit policy since the mid-1970s with regard to incapacity benefits, unemployment benefits, pensions, child benefits maternity provision and taxation.
Generally the study found that the 1979 system provided levels of provision for low and middle incomes that were generous at the time and designed to last a lifetime. The 1997 system favoured the highest incomes most and the poorest least. The 2008 system has redressed much of 1997's worst effects on the poor family lifetime, but only if people work continually and are never sick or unemployed.
It is higher-income families who have gained most over the 30 years of change and the lowest income families who have lost ground. How much ground depends on whether they can remain in work throughout their lives. With continuous lifetime employment diminishing, the low earners look set to fall further behind. Middle range earners are basically no better or worse off in 2008 than in 1979 or 1997.
Disability benefits were considered to be the one notable area of expansion of entitlement and generosity in non-means tested provision over the 30-year period. In-work benefits to help supplement low pay for disabled people were introduced alongside an expansion in anti-discrimination laws.
A summary of the study can be downloaded from the link below.
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