Britain’s dreadful new benefits trap demands a response

The Institute for Fiscal studies has found that while welfare reform has got claimants working, it leaves them stuck in low-wage, part-time work from which they cannot progress, writes James Moore. Work hard and get on? Under the current system that’s a myth

Benefit reforms have pushed many people into low-wage jobs, the IFS has said (PA)

When children face the question “what do you want to be when you want to grow up?”, a common response is astronaut, or maybe doctor?

I’d be willing to bet my house that no child has ever answered: “researcher for the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)”.

However, the work the staff at that august organisation produce is often of extraordinarily high value. Take the report that the IFS Deaton Review of Inequalities has published in conjunction with the Nuffield Foundation. It takes a medical scalpel and uses it to cut to the heart of the problem with welfare reform.