Economic security: A foundation for dignity, opportunity and hope in an age of uncertainty

The day to day reality of economic insecurity shows up in visceral experiences: a cancelled shift, an unexpected rent hike, nothing set aside for a rainy day, childcare falling through (and now the fallout of high inflation and rising interest rates). But it is also visible in deeper trends which have undercut the foundations of security:

• The extent of precarious work: over a fifth (21%) of UK workers, or 6.6 million people, are in temporary work, are low-income self-employed, or face volatile pay and hours, including zero hours contracts (Richardson, 2021). Unemployment benefit replaces just 12% of average earnings and statutory sick pay just 16% (Harrop, 2023). Around 2.2 million people are economically inactive but would like to work now or in the future (Tomlinson, 2023).
• The housing tenure shift: the proportion of households privately renting more than doubled from around 1 in 10 at the turn of the millennium to almost 1 in 5 by 2019/20 (Baxter, 2022). The proportion of families headed by someone under 40 who live in either an owner-occupied or socially rented home fell from over four-fifths (83%) to under two-thirds (66%) over the same periodⁱ.
• The great wealth divide: around a quarter of UK adults (11.5 million people) have less than £100 savings, with 1 in 6 having none at all (O’Brien, 2023). 30% of households own just 1% of total household wealth (ONS, 2022). Households headed by someone born in the 1980s with the least wealthy parents are set to get a 5% boost to their lifetime income through inheritance, compared to 29% for those with the wealthiest parents (Bourquin et al., 2021).
• The intensification of hardship: the number of people living in deep povertyⁱⁱ rose by a fifth, from 4.8 to 6.5 million, between 2002/3 and 2019/20 (Schmuecker et al., 2022). Rising food insecurity led to the number of emergency food parcels distributed by Trussell increasing from 1.1 million in 2015/6 to almost 3 million last year. The value of the core working age benefit is at its lowest in real terms for almost 40 years (JRF and Trussell, 2023).
• The risk shift in pensions: auto-enrolment has expanded workplace pensions, but the participation rate for those earning under £10,000 a year is half that for those on median earnings (44% versus 87%), while only 17% are saving enough for retirement (Cribb et al., 2023). Just over 1 in 10 private sector employees are now enrolled in a Defined Benefit pension, offering a guaranteed retirement income, compared to just under 4 in 10 in the late 1990s (Cribb et al., 2023).
• The fragility of care services and time to care: less than half of all local authorities (48%) report enough local childcare for parents working full-time, and less than 1 in 5 (18%) report enough for children with a disability (Coleman et al., 2022). Over half (56%) of those earning less than £20,000 per year say that if they had to miss a day’s work due to a family emergency they wouldn’t be paid (compared to just 12% among workers earning above £60,000) (Cominetti et al., 2023).

Drawing on this diagnosis, the briefing proposes a guiding approach to a reform strategy built around pillars of action which aim to protect against insecurity on the one hand and enlarge the foundations of security on the other (in relation to work, homes, care, assets, pensions and intense forms of hardship).

Beyond any specific policy, the value of an economic security lens is in offering a sense of purpose, direction and orientation for social reform, around the following shifts:

• raising the floor of employment security and enhancing control at work, alongside improving financial protection if people lose their job or cannot work for a period
• offering help and space for those looking for work to find a secure job that sticks, while making work possible and desirable for those outside the labour market
• expanding access to secure homes, whether rented or owned, via interventions to build more new homes and shift the distribution of existing homes
• protecting time for families and for caring around working life, while building up and strengthening the infrastructure of care services that families can rely on
• ensuring social security provides sufficient income to afford the essentials, alongside forging a ‘social safety net’ of crisis support, practical help and social connection where people live
• helping people accrue modest savings, access affordable credit, gain relief from problem debt and hold assets (especially those without access to family wealth)
• putting future pension provision on a more secure footing, by raising minimum contribution rates and reforming the decumulation phase so not all the risks to retirement incomes resting on individuals.

The language of ‘security’ has come to the fore in politics and macroeconomics, as politicians engage with the implications of Covid, the Ukraine war, and a wider turn towards national economic resilience. In his remarks to the G7 this year about global threats, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak argued that “our collective economic security matters more now than ever” (Sunak, 2023). In a recent speech in Washington, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves made the case for putting “the economic security of a nation” at the centre of government strategy, to reflect how the world has moved on from the era of hyper globalisation to an ‘age of insecurity’ (Reeves, 2023).

The focus of these interventions, across the political spectrum, has tended to be macro policy targeted at the national economy. But this lens has wider and connected implications, given that families have been facing an ‘age of insecurity’ tooⁱⁱⁱ. This is evident in visceral experiences and structural trends related to the growth of precarious work, the decline of secure housing tenures, the intensification of financial hardship, the shift of pension risk to individuals, the extent of households in debt or with no savings, the fragility of care infrastructure and so on. The lens of security draws attention to many of the most consequential social and economic trends for households over the last generation.

These shifts have taken place in – and been sparked or exacerbated by – a period of major economic shocks that stands in stark contrast to the so-called ‘Great Moderation’ of the 2 decades after the end of the Cold War. The financial crisis, Brexit, Covid, spiking inflation, not to mention technological change and the deepening ecological crisis, indicate that we are living in an era of systemic risks and economic transition with real, though unequal, human consequences. In that context, the extent to which people enjoy the foundations of economic security – enabling them to cope and adapt, to shape their life, and ultimately to thrive in an uncertain world – should be a fundamental question of our age.

Picking up that challenge, this paper argues for a project of social reform aimed at advancing the economic security of individuals and households. Its driving ambition would be to enhance people’s sense of control over vital aspects of their lives, providing a platform for dignity, opportunity and hope, while enabling their fullest contribution to society and the economy. This case rests on the value of economic security as a lens for thinking about what matters in principle, as well as a guide to practical responses to the urgent challenges of now. In doing so it brings into focus the longer-run, structural shifts that have spread insecurity on the one hand and narrowed access to the foundations of security on the other.

Having established that case, the paper goes on to suggest a guiding approach and possible priority actions for spreading economic security, as a contribution to the pursuit of social justice in the UK in the second quarter of the 21st century. The paper concludes by assessing the prospects for such a reform project, including its potential to tap into the mood of the country and underpin broad-based coalitions of support. Attention is also paid to how reform might be advanced, with a focus on putting down institutional and regulatory roots with the potential to endure, while mobilising different sources of power and agency (rather than being solely dependent on the central state or volatile and contingent fiscal choices).

The central purpose of this paper is to make a broad argument about the value of economic security as a lens for understanding and responding to the period we are living in. In covering significant ground, it inevitably simplifies complex issues, leaving important questions unaddressed or in need of further exploration^iv. The arguments and ideas in the paper draw on recent and on-going projects being led or supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, so owe a debt to those working on them.

What does it mean to be economically secure?

There is no settled definition of economic security, but a consistent starting point is the focus on exposure to risks or ‘shocks’, and the ability to cope in response (see Shafique, 2018; Richiardi and He, 2020; Hacker, 2018; Ranci et al., 2020). This is usually framed around immediate household finances: volatile incomes or lumpy costs, plus the smoothing role of savings, assets or borrowing. Such attention to the dynamism of people’s experiences is an essential aspect of economic security, relative to static or aggregate perspectives.

But going further, the argument here is that economic – as opposed to purely financial – insecurity has wider and longer-run dimensions. And that these give it additional explanatory value, while also opening up a broader canvass for change. First, exposure to social and economic risks, and their consequences, extend beyond personal finances. Unpredictable working hours, the fear of eviction, unreliable caring arrangements, relationship breakdown, the absence of someone to turn to for help all speak to experiences of insecurity, with economic dimensions and impacts, that are not entirely reducible to household finances.

Second, an economic security lens goes beyond specific experiences or events to draw attention to the foundational factors which shape people’s exposure to risk and their resilience in response. These foundations are formed from often enduring personal factors (like employment status, housing tenure, education levels, pension provision, as well as physical and mental health), social relations (in the family, community and workplace), as well as underlying household resources (across income, costs and wealth). These foundations structure the risks people are likely to face and their ability to cope, revealing their uneven distribution. Conversely, they also form the positive building blocks of economic security, which enhance people’s control over their lives, providing the basis for dignity, routes to opportunity and sources of hope in the future.

Third, a defining feature of economic security is its emotional and psychological dimensions. Insecurity is associated with fear, stress and anxiety (Clark and Wenham, 2022). It shrinks horizons, narrows possibility, limits agency and corrodes hope. Crucially, such impacts can flow from the perception of insecurity, as well the reality. For instance, research has found that actual and perceived financial insecurity has a negative impact on people’s cognitive bandwidth and decision-making (Mullainathan and Shafir 2013). By contrast, security breeds psychological safety and feelings of confidence and self-worth. It is arguably the precondition for people to feel and be the author of their life, with a stake in the future, and to believe that daily efforts are likely to pay off, and that hard work and effort will find their reward.

Uncertainty and unpredictability are not just inherent in life, especially in the present age of shocks and transitions, they are part of what makes it worth living. But the question is whether people are masters of their own adventure or servants to someone else’s story? Can they thrive in the face of change, so it becomes a source of future prosperity and fulfilment? In this context, the foundations of economic security go a long way to providing a psychological, as well as a material, platform for people to take risks, think long-term, invest in themselves and their family, enjoy a measure of agency over their own lives, and contribute to society and the economy.

Taking all this into account, we might say that to be and to feel economically secure is to enjoy a measure of control over your life now and a sense of ordinary hope for the future. That requires sufficient and predictable resources, of income and wealth, in relation to the costs and burdens of life. It rests on secure work and a secure home, on education, on good health, and on reliable care infrastructure. It is sustained by relationships of family, friends and community. It means you can cope when things happen, and you can fully contribute to society and the economy. It’s something you have and something you are, but also something you feel and believe and have confidence in.

To advance economic security is to care about the demanding conditions for people to be the author of their life, to seize opportunities, and to participate in society to their fullest extent.

What other ideas and traditions does economic security draw on?

This conception of economic security draws on a rich set of theoretical perspectives and intellectual traditions. It owes much to multi-dimensional accounts of justice, such as the idea of ‘complex equality’ (Walzer, 1983), capability theory (Sen, 1999 and Nussbaum, 2011) and the insight that disadvantages tend to ‘cluster’ across different domains, including to reinforce one another and reveal systemic injustice (Wolff and de Shalitt, 2007). These perspectives all rest on pluralism, in relation to what people value as well as the factors affecting their ability to pursue the life they choose. They also foreground the essential contribution and dignity of human agency, over paternalism, while recognising that exercising that agency rests on structural factors that are unevenly distributed.

A central insight from these intellectual roots is that justice cannot be collapsed down to one thing of value for people nor aggregated up to a single measure for the success of society. In this tradition, economic security – at the individual and society level – rests on the interaction between different but related domains. That rests on the interplay between economic, social and psychological factors, including how they play out overtime. Human agency is also central to forging economic security, though exercised within the limits of people’s social and economic conditions. As such, it draws on the idea of ‘positive freedom’ (Berlin, 1958), where true liberty requires far more than the removal of external constraints.

Going further, economic security draws on notions of social or ‘relational equality’, which foreground respect, recognition, self-worth and autonomy, as the basis for full participation in society. This also provides a core justification for confronting material inequalities that inhibit and constrain these vital values (Anderson, 1999). This is reinforced by feminist and wider intersectional thinking which highlights how such constraints are experienced by some groups much more than others, to their own detriment and to that of society as a whole. A focus on economic security also draws on analysis of welfare regimes which emphasise their risk-pooling and social insurance functions (Esping-Andersen, 1990, Barr, 2001) and a sociological focus on how shifting patterns of risk are affecting the nature of social class, for example the literature on the ‘precariat’ (Savage, 2015 and Standing, 2021).

It is important to be clear that economic security is not a complete account of what social justice demands. For instance, it needs to be complemented with democratic freedoms, political equality and legal rights, along with action to address systemic inequalities in all aspects of life (related to gender, race, disability and other protected characteristics). These justice-related demands also offer reasons to care about the scale of inequalities of wealth and income beyond how they structure the distribution of economic security. Perhaps most importantly, this lens provides only a partial account of environmental justice. Claims for economic security respond to challenges arising from systemic risks – like resource scarcity – and the need to protect households from climate-driven insecurities of different kinds. But the justice demands of transitioning to an environmentally sustainable world reach far wider.

What is the value of economic security as a social justice lens?

Holding on to this caveat, these philosophical roots of economic security help to shed light on its merits relative to other concepts of justice or disadvantage. Its value is not in providing a new metric to judge the success of society, but in offering a powerful lens for seeing much of what matters in the pursuit of social justice. From that, it helps to diagnose where society is falling short, and guiding the nature of action needed in response. While communication is not the focus of this paper, it may be that by focusing on concrete and everyday human experiences, economic security could open up language that is more tangible and relatable than abstract concepts of justice , like either freedom or equality (Luntz, 2023).

Turing back to ideas, it is not possible to be economically secure if your resources are insufficient to meet basic needs. Therefore, the rise in destitution and deep poverty over the last 2 decades constitute its most visceral and urgent violation (Schmuecker et al., 2022). However, overall, the multidimensional and dynamic nature of economic security better accounts for the reality of human experience than singular, point-in-time measures of income or wealth. The same critique can be levelled at a focus on immediate living standards, which also misses much that matters. Economic security is about concrete experiences, where people themselves are the central protagonists. So, it is not attained through a particular ordering of society, nor is it visible in composite or population-wide measures, whether GDP per capita or the Gini co-efficient.

However, the pursuit of economic security is a fundamentally egalitarian project, including to maximise access to real freedom. It is concerned with the distribution of the capabilities and conditions for security, as a platform for exercising control, taking opportunities and contributing to society. It is attentive to questions of psychology, emotions and perceptions, related to the feelings that security (and insecurity) generate. However, these are anchored in people’s resources and economic relations, so is not interchangeable with ‘general well-being’ or personal character and resilience. Economic security centres on human agency, but its recognition of structural context is far more demanding than meritocracy or social mobility.

This latter point draws out how the attainment of economic security for individuals and households is inextricably intertwined with questions of political economy. For instance, the literature on precarity emphasises the ways in which our current economic model – and social settlement – drives insecurity, with material and psychological impacts (Gentili, 2021, Azmanova, 2020 and Standing, 2021). We are living in an era of systemic risks and transitions – related to finance, climate, technology and public health – which affect the economic security of households. So, expanding it requires shifts in power dynamics and institutional arrangements. Economic security cannot be attained by ‘after-the-fact’ redistribution alone. For instance, even at highly generous levels, tax and transfer payments leave insecurities rooted in power, capability, dignity and discrimination untouched.

It may also be the case that economic security at the household level has positive effects for the macro economy too. For instance, Berry and O’Donovan, 2023 highlight the ways that insecurity inhibits innovative activity among individuals, such as where stress and anxiety crowd out deep learning and creativity (Akinola et al, 2019). They also suggest that insecurity can disincentivise risk taking and entrepreneurialism, where people lack time and capital to invest in ideas and have little to fall back on if things don’t work out (Berry and O’Donovan, 2023). This echoes evidence that unmanageable debt makes it far less likely people will start a business, study or retrain, move home or change jobs (Lane 2016). And research suggesting that current practices for applying conditionality rules may be contributing to weak productivity, such as through poor matching between jobseekers and employers (Jones, 2021).

The relationship between economic security and dynamism, innovation and productivity merits further research. But if economic security is part of what enables people to realise their potential and unlock their highest point of contribution – where insecurity narrows and corrodes – then expanding the foundations of that security becomes a critical pathway to economic prosperity. This reinforces the interdependence between social justice and economic success, while highlighting how it may need to be reimagined for today (especially when climate and technological change suggest we are on the cusp of major transitions). In an age of uncertainty, the challenge is to make the reality of change something that as many people as possible can master and thrive in, not be servants or victims to.

Building on the normative case for caring about economic security, we turn next to the value and use of this concept as an explanatory lens for analysing the moment we are living in. Doing so reveals how an economic security vantage point shines a light on urgent challenges facing millions of households right now, as well as some of the most troubling social and economic shifts of recent decades.

To start with, the lens of economic security explains why the rising cost of living has been difficult for some but disastrous for many (Earwaker and Johnson-Hunter, 2023). The impact of high inflation has been most acute for those facing other economic risks, like poor health or exposure to interest rate rises. Similarly, those lacking key foundations of security, like having no savings or a weak network of support from family and friends when times are tough, have been especially vulnerable. As with the financial crisis and Covid before it, the inflation surge of the last 2 years has laid bare the lack of resilience among many households and the profound insecurities weaved through our economic and social settlement.

There is scope for further exploration of exactly which forms of actual and perceived insecurity, and security, matter most for different groups of people, at different points in life. And to understand more about how they cluster and the ways in which their consequences interact to reinforce or counteract each other. However, by adopting a more overarching lens – but looking beneath headline trends – it is possible to see the major shifts and forces which have undermined or narrowed economic security since roughly the start of the 21st century. This lens also helps to diagnose the causes of those problems and pinpoint the challenges we are left with as a result.

Headline rates of poverty and income inequality have been relatively flat over the last 2 decades. But beneath this surface picture, intense forms of financial hardship and insecurity have been on the increase, with deep poverty and destitution rising, along with an explosion of food bank use (Schmuecker et al., 2022). The basic level of social security support has become increasingly unanchored from the cost of subsistence essentials (JRF and Trussell Trust, 2023) and forms of local emergency and crisis assistance have withered (Whitham, 2018). Insecurity is compounded by the design and operation of Universal Credit, where monthly assessments in arrears creates financial instability for those with volatile earnings (Bennett and Millar, 2023). The structure of UC also drives large numbers of households into debt at the start of their claim, with repayments only intensifying hardship (McDonagh, 2022).

The overall employment rate has remained high and unemployment low throughout the economic turmoil of the last 15 years. Rates of hourly low pay have also been falling, thanks to minimum wage uprating. But an insecurity lens reveals the labour market challenges of today:

• First, the rise of precarious forms of employment: rooted in atypical contract status, but also relating to issues of control, like work intensity, autonomy and voice in the workplace (Richardson, 2021, Cominetti et al., 2023). Some of these issues are being exacerbated as digital technology in general, and Artificial Intelligence in particular, play a larger role in the workplace (Plunkett, 2022), such as through greater worker surveillance (Parkes, 2023).
• Second, the weakness of social insurance in the UK system: low replacement rates for those losing a job, paltry and patchy sick pay, and low maternity and paternity protection for those reliant on statutory provision (Harrop et al., 2023).
• Third, the extent of ‘cycling’ between insecure work and unemployment, rooted in the concentration of poor-quality jobs in parts of the labour market and the rules and practices of benefit conditionality.
• And fourth, the exclusion from the labour market – and the insecurity of worklessness – of a large minority, such as those with low levels of education and the 2.2 million people with a health condition or disability who are ‘economically inactive’ but say they want to work now or in the future (Casey et al., 2023).

Turning to housing, unaffordable property prices and low rates of housebuilding get most attention, but arguably the most consequential trend is the long-term retreat of more secure tenures (owner occupation and social rent) and the growth of private renting, especially among families with children (Baxter, 2022). This has been driven by a mix of supply and demand factors. The number of socially rented homes has declined, the increase in overall housing stock has been almost entirely matched by growth in the PRS, easy credit pushed up housing (asset) prices benefiting incumbents, shifts in the mortgage market after 2008 tilted access away from first-time-buyers towards landlords, investors and cash buyers (increasing the share of buy-to-let, second homes and holiday lets), and access to housing subsidies for those on low incomes has been reduced. Rising interest rates are now generating new insecurities for mortgage holders and renters (via the shake-out of the buy-to-let market).

These trends have undermined the idea of home as a cornerstone of security. The rising ratio of house prices to incomes, skewed access to mortgage finance, and the attraction of property investment among non-resident buyers, have made it harder for families to put down roots or access the material and psychological benefits of ownership. This has a strong generational dimension, with many older people now owning outright and most buyers under 40 doing so only with the help of family wealth. The expansion of private renting has left more people exposed to short notice rent rises and tenancy termination, while being unable to build equity, plan ahead or feel in control of their home. In parallel, access to social housing is ever more tightly rationed, while intermediate options like shared ownership or rent to buy have not reached any sort of scale. Meanwhile, the most extreme forms of housing insecurity, like homelessness and temporary accommodation, have been rising.

These anti-security housing market trends have been one part of a wider story of assets and wealth becoming more important in shaping patterns of economic security. Levels of wealth inequality have remained stable, but a dramatic increase in total household wealth, driven by ultra-low interest rates, has exacerbated the divide between the security ‘haves and have-nots' (Broome and Leslie, 2023). Holding assets now depends significantly on the distribution of family gifts and inheritances, especially as stagnant real incomes make it hard to build them from surplus earnings (Goss and Glover, 2023). At the sharpest end, a significant minority of households have very low or no liquid savings to cushion lumpy costs or cope with an income hit. Personal debt is high, with increasing use of loan sharks, payday and doorstep lenders as cost of living pressures bite (Earwaker and Johnson-Hunter, 2023). Tighter bank lending rules and limited secure alternatives mean there are few good options for those seeking small amounts of affordable credit to smooth household finances.

Many current retirees are drawing on guaranteed, index-linked pensions and the triple lock has put the state pension on a secure footing. In addition, auto-enrolment has been a major success in getting more of the current working-age population into workplace schemes. However, the structural switch from Defined Benefit to Defined Contribution pensions has shifted inflation, longevity and investment risk onto individuals. Combined with low contribution rates, including from employers, and a fragmented market of pension schemes (with many too small to offer good governance and high returns), this institutional settlement means uncertain pension outcomes for future retirees (Cribb et al., 2023). Pension provision among the self-employed is dangerously weak. These trends are compounded by lower rates of homeownership and unpredictable, uninsured social care costs.

After big shifts during the 20th century, rates of marriage, divorce and single parenthood have been relatively stable for some time. However, the number of single person households has continued to rise. Single adults cannot share costs, income, caring and domestic work within the household, leaving them less resilient. Similarly, the absence of extended family close to home makes it harder to manage instability in working patterns or caring arrangements, especially for those without flexibility and control over working hours (the impacts of which are heavily gendered). These trends are exacerbated by a greater likelihood of loved ones living for longer periods with ill health in old age. Outside the family, there are indications of fragility in the forms of social connection, associational life and civic infrastructure that provide networks of support and friendship when times are tough (Blagden and Valentin, 2023)^v.

The areas interrogated above focus largely on issues of social policy, related to what we might describe as the ‘social settlement’ (reflecting JRF’s principal concerns). But the lens of economic security also sheds light on other consequential trends and challenges. For example, the impacts of poor health for people’s economic security were gravely illustrated during the pandemic and are now playing out through higher levels of health-related economic inactivity. Experiences of economic security are strongly mediated by level of education, especially where this acts as a protective factor in the context of other disadvantages (such as disability). Similarly, the economic insecurity generated by the adult social care system, such as exposure to unpredictable costs, pressures on family life, and impacts on labour-market participation, is a crucial part of the case for its fundamental reform.

Macro factors also bear heavily on the economic security of households. This is rooted in the business cycle itself and the risks associated with recession and inflation, but also the impact of monetary policy and financial regulation on asset prices. In recent years, major macro shocks have generated huge economic insecurity, via Covid and then spiking wholesale energy prices. These demanded massive state-led economic interventions to shield households from the consequences of these risks, via furlough and the Energy Price Guarantee (in addition to the automatic stabilisers). Longer-run variation in regional economic performance also has consequences for economic security, such as through large variations in the availability of well-paying, secure jobs and the accessibility of secure housing tenures – whether social rent or sustainable home ownership – in different parts of the country.

In summary, the lens of economic security draws out trends and diagnoses problems that a focus on income, living standards, or aggregate measures of growth, equality or well-being, would miss. This is because it starts with everyday life not abstract goals: a cancelled shift, an unexpected rent hike, nothing set aside at the end of the month, childcare falling through. And it connects them to deeper social and economic forces: in social security, labour and housing markets, the distribution of assets and wealth, health and education systems, time for families, formal care services, as well as the role of informal, community-based support.

This gives economic security a potency in guiding a strategy for change because it speaks to ordinary hopes and struggles, expressed in everyday language. But crucially it also draws attention to the need for significant shifts in our social settlement if those everyday concerns are to be met with action and change, such that as many people as possible enjoy the foundations of security from which they can prosper and thrive.

If economic security offers a compelling framework for thinking about what matters in principle, and a valuable lens for diagnosing real-world problems, the next question is what would be a strategy to expand it and spread it to more people?

This is where the argument becomes more open and speculative. A defining feature of economic security is precisely that it is not collapsible to one metric of success. There are also multiple paths to progress, depending on which dimension of insecurity or which group in society is greatest priority. Ideological choices matter too, related to judgements about state capacity and efficacy, the nature of the UK’s economic model and the possibilities for its adaptation, as well as the potential of local, civic and other forms of non-state action. This diversity is a strategic virtue, meaning multiple points of intervention, many change tools to deploy, and a greater range of political coalitions to be built in support of progress.

However, to stimulate discussion, this briefing offers a potential guiding approach to a strategy for spreading economic security, with a set of illustrative actions consistent with it. Reflecting JRF’s core concerns, these principally address issues of social reform – related to income, assets, work, home, pensions and care^vi, with attention to intense forms of hardship that drive the ultimate insecurities. However, the proposed approach has implications for the role of wider public services and for broader economic strategy, which are briefly mentioned but merit much fuller treatment.

This guiding approach is framed around the idea that economic security for individuals, families and households is built from 3 components: resources, relationships and capabilities, with the implication that the goal of policy or wider action should be to expand and deepen these foundations for as many people as possible.

• Resources are the material basis for economic security: income relative to costs, wealth, employment, home, and access to care and other public services. A security perspective is concerned with the sufficiency of these resources, as well as the degree of actual and perceived control that people can exercise over them, as the basis for enabling real freedom.
• Relationships are the nourishing forms of entanglement between people, given that economic security cannot be achieved alone. These range from the personal – among family, friends, co-workers and community – to the larger and more formal – such as collective actions or institutions that pool risk, build power, facilitate social connection, or tilt markets or the state in a pro-security direction.
• Finally, capabilities are the things people can do and be that affect their economic security, but which are also shaped by it, alongside their resources and relationships. It is through the interaction between these 3 components that security confers a sense of control – and a route to dignity, opportunity and hope.

In practice, there are no inevitable associations between resources, relationships and capabilities. They can reinforce or undermine one another in a variety of ways, in particular moments and across the life course. Further research is needed to better understand these dynamic effects, including their psychological dimensions (building on Clark and Wenham, 2022, and studies of the impact of the pandemic^vii).

Taking resources, relationships and capabilities as its 3 core components, a guiding approach to a strategy for spreading the foundations of economic security to more households could be built around 4 interlocking pillars.

The first 2 are aimed at limiting exposure to particular kinds of insecurity, caused by both markets and the state:

• Action to protect against insecurity: by placing limits (or ‘ceilings’) on market-driven insecurities and squeezing out instances of government-driven insecurity. This would rest on regulatory change and reform of the state, including how it treats people.
• Action to entrench floors of security: through state-backed minimums (or ‘floors’) that establish stronger foundations that people can rely on, ideally with institutional backing to defend and potentially extend them over time.

Limiting exposure to insecurities is necessary but insufficient. It must be combined with complimentary positive steps to actively shape markets, shifts public systems, and mobilises civic endeavour in pro-security directions (not just respond to the outcomes they would otherwise generate). This means directly intervening in institutions and systems to reorder how the foundations of security are distributed:

• Action to shape and sustain pro-security institutions: while design and functions would be context-specific, their purpose would be to embody risk sharing, to enable collective action or to establish pro-security public options within wider markets or systems.
• Action to enable local, civic and community-level action: to mobilise the power of family, relationships and social networks, the agency of neighbourhoods and localities acting in consort, as well as other forms of people-powered action or movements^viii.

To bring this framework to life, we can imagine how interventions across these 4 pillars might come together to guide, prioritise and inspire action in response to the real-world challenges discussed earlier, with the goal of spreading the foundations of security to many more people. The ideas discussed below are illustrative, not comprehensive, and for brevity are only signalled in headline terms (with the numbering 1 to 4 under each heading relating to the pillars described above).

Security at work, security through work

1. Extend protections against insecurity at work, such as a right to minimum contracted hours and notice of shifts patterns, underpinned by widening the remit of the Low Pay Commission to recommend action to reduce workplace insecurity and lack of control at work (backed up by coordinated and resourced enforcement activity) (Cominetti et al., 2023). Experiment with conditionality rules to give the recently unemployed time and space to find a job match that is likely to stick, while shifting the role of Jobcentre Plus for this group towards providing high-quality labour market information and recruitment support for employers, and away from the dominance of monitoring and compliance.
2. Increase the rate of the minimum wage to the goal of it reaching two-thirds of median earnings, and then test whether further increases are consistent with maintaining a strong wage floor that does not significantly damage employment (Cominetti et al., 2023). Institutionalise a job guarantee for anyone who has been looking for work for, say, 12 months, to place a limit on the duration of unemployment. This could take the form of a temporary work placement with an employer, paid at least the National Living Wage, with support to then find sustainable work.
3. Experiment with sector-based social partnership institutions to drive up productivity, job quality, management capability and worker voice, starting in the most insecure sectors like care, retail and hospitality (as part of a wider industrial strategy for the ‘everyday economy’ and alongside support for trade unions and other forms of worker power to confront workplace insecurities).
4. Empower local places to design and lead an employment support offer, with a particular goal of making paid work desirable and possible for people with a health condition or disability. This might connect up work-focused training, occupational health, financial advice, employer engagement, work trials and the power of networks in helping people find sustainable employment.

A secure home

1. Implement the abolition of no-fault evictions for private renters, including preventing loopholes, e.g. to stop landlords using unreasonable rent increases or erroneous claims to want to sell or move family in as grounds for eviction. Make mortgage insurance compulsory and/or encouraging longer-term fixed rate deals to open up sustainable homeownership for potential first-time buyers who can afford it, while protecting them from interest rate volatility (Mulheirn et al., 2022).
2. Restore the link between the value of Local Housing Allowance and the level of market rents, and resetting that level of housing cost support for private renters so they can access a reasonable share of the local market.
3. Establish a publicly-owned master developer, to lead the delivery of large new settlements and urban extensions for the long-term, in the public interest. Its remit would be to accelerate the pace, scale and quality of new development, with more secure and affordable housing options and good infrastructure, in the places that new homes are needed most^ix. Develop an institutional vehicle to provide councils and other social-purpose landlords with finance and technical support to acquire homes in the secondary market at scale, to shift homes from insecure private tenancies to more secure forms of social, sub-market and professionally managed renting (where this makes long term financial sense and supports decarbonisation efforts).
4. Mobilise and resource collective action in places to end homelessness and long stays in temporary accommodation, drawing on lessons from ‘Everyone In’ during the pandemic (combining support for individuals and families, with steps to increase the supply of social and sub-market rented home, through new build and social licencing arrangements with private landlords).

Security from savings, assets, pensions

1. Enact proposals to regulate exploitative lending practices like buy-now-pay-later, building on the price cap on short-term credit (alongside clamping down on excessive debt collection and bailiff practices, including by local councils). Reduce the disincentive to save by significantly increasing the capital limits in Universal Credit and other means-tested benefits, for instance with a higher overall savings disregard and rules akin to tax credits where only income derived from savings counts against the entitlement.
2. Entrench Help to Save as a matched savings scheme, while extending access to more low-income households (funded by switching some public subsidy from ISAs) (Broome et al., 2023). Encourage pension providers to offer simple ‘side car’ savings options, to help build rainy day funds alongside retirement savings. Gradually increase minimum employer pension contributions, alongside extending auto-enrolment to the lowest-paid and youngest employees. Default the self-employed into pension saving via the tax system, with an element of matched contributions from the state and the right to opt out (Harrop, 2022).
3. Help future retirees to better manage pension risks within a Defined Contribution model, such as via structural innovation in the decumulation phase to offer greater protection from longevity and inflation risks, in the context of ‘pension freedoms’ (Harrop, 2022)^x.
4. Provide a Capital Gift to those reaching adulthood who are highly unlikely to inherit wealth, e.g. starting with care leavers. In time, turn Inheritance Tax into a Gift Receipt Tax, perhaps then offering 18 year olds the choice of a generous tax free allowance (if they are likely to receive a wealth transfer from a family member) or a one off Capital Gift from the state (if they are not). Capitalise a network of local institutions to provide affordable credit, linked to money and debt advice, building on existing credit unions and community finance development institutions. These would fill the space where mainstream lenders do not operate, with endowments to these institutions funded from a levy on the finance sector, as part of meeting its social obligations.

Income security (and freedom from hardship)

1. Reduce the instability and unpredictability of income in Universal Credit (UC) by shifting support with childcare costs out of UC (and ideally, moving to longer fixed awards during which financial support can go up but not down). Abolish the Work Capability Assessment, which causes huge anxiety and distracts and delays from a focus on enabling employment, while addressing weaknesses in the Government’s current proposals (especially in relation to conditionality rules and practices, while also ensuring that people currently receiving health-related top ups in UC can access Personal Independence Payment instead). Reshape the initial phase of UC claims to stop state-sponsored personal debt problems via the ‘five week wait’. Introduce affordability tests and reasonable repayment limits into debt deduction rules. Cancel historic tax credit debt.
2. Establish an ‘essentials guarantee’ in Universal Credit and legacy benefits to ensure that the core element is sufficient to afford life’s essentials, backed up by an independent body or process to advise on this level (JRF and Trussell Trust, 2023).
3. Build-up social insurance to cushion wage interruptions, such as earnings related short-term unemployment benefit; earnings related sick pay or temporary sickness benefit; higher maternity and paternity pay for those reliant on statutory provision (and state-backed insurance options for the self-employed (Harrop et al., 2023).
4. Mobilise a ‘social safety net’ at the neighbourhood level so there is somewhere to go and someone to turn to when times are tough: for crisis support, practical help, and human connection. Locally designed and owned, this should be forged through collaboration between the local state, civil society and fellow citizens (as distinct from social security and specialist public services) (Cooke and Schmuecker, 2023).

Security through care and relationships

1. Extend regulatory oversight of the childcare market to consider the viability and sustainability of provider finances, business models and ownership structures, with the aim of creating a more stable and reliable system for parents and children (Jitendra, 2023).
2. Establish a simpler core offer to parents about the childcare services they can rely on, through a single system of support comprising free hours and a progressive fee structure, replacing the current complex web of entitlements and subsides (Jarvie et al., 2023).
3. Deepen the institutional roots of childcare infrastructure, so that it offers high quality, reliable support to families. This might involve stronger market shaping and commissioning powers at the local level (such as through a social licensing model) and putting the workforce on a more stable and sustainable footing.
4. Offer flexible work as a day one right, unless there are strong employer grounds not to (with a duty to consider flexibility when designing roles and to state it on job adverts) (Timewise, 2022). Introduce a form of Statutory Care Pay, mirroring statutory maternity pay, to enable people to take defined periods away from work to care for family members, while not having to give up their job (Thompson et al., 2023).

The examples above focus on social policy. However, broader public services also play an important role in advancing economic security: growing capabilities, building relationships and socialising costs. The latter contribution is embodied in the idea of the ‘social wage’ — the in-kind benefits that individuals and households receive from public spending on services that they would otherwise have to finance through private consumption. At its best, the NHS is perhaps our most powerful institutional engine for economic security, supporting people in times of need, while pooling the risks and smoothing the cost of ill health.

Similarly, macroeconomic policy has a crucial impact on the economic security of households. Fiscal policy can mitigate the impact of the business cycle, including through automatic stabilisers (to protect households from economic shocks and their scarring effects). Monetary policy aims to keep interest rates and inflation low, while financial regulation should minimise the risk of credit bubbles and household debt. Broader public spending, drawn from balanced and sustainable growth, is also essential to financing public services and the wider social settlement envisaged here.

Going further, the economic security of households also rests on the wider terrain of national economic strategy, as addressed in Rachel Reeves’ argument for ‘securonmics’ (Reeves, 2023). In particular, the role of industrial, regional and investment policy in helping to generate good, secure, well-paying jobs across the country. Attention to the resilience of supply chains, the strength of domestic production in key sectors, and the management of systemic risks – like climate, energy, finance, public health – all point in a pro-security direction.

To illustrate how macro- and household-level action to expand economic security could synchronise effectively, consider the example of addressing energy policy through the 4 pillars of action proposed here. An energy policy for economic security and net zero might combine:

• an energy price cap to protect consumers from volatile wholesale prices
• a social or rising block tariff to establish a progressive minimum floor of cheap energy for households (and perhaps premium prices for ‘luxury’ levels of energy consumption)
• institutional and market interventions to dramatically expand domestic clean energy production
• efforts to mobilise community-level action on both energy generation and decarbonisation (especially in relation to homes and transport).

The guiding approach proposed here aims to establish a pro-economic security architecture, prior to the question of how much public expenditure the Government of the day chooses to devote to it. This aims to forge a sustainable and politically resilient settlement, while also recognising that the material, social and psychological benefits of economic security cannot be attained through income redistribution alone. However, the actions proposed here would require additional public spending, which would inevitably need to build overtime, given the wider economic context and many competing demands on the public purse.

More than any of the specific proposals, the core aim of this paper is to offer a galvanising argument, a broad orientation and a set of directions to guide policy over the medium term. Expanding economic security is a long-term project, which would require a range of coordinated policy decisions and a sustained reform effort. A core and cumulative goal of the proposals set out here would be to better mobilise the economic dynamism and potential of as many citizens as possible, from a foundation of security, in ways that would help to finance the shifts envisaged here.

The strategy for expanding economic security proposed above aims to respond to the social and economic challenges of now, while tapping into the mood of the country, in a time of uncertainty and transition. It aims to do so in ways that could build broad, cross-class support, while putting down enduring roots that are not wholly dependent on the central state or volatile and contingent fiscal choices. To assess its prospects for success, it is worth putting this approach and its associated ideas in the context of previous waves of social reform.

After the Second World War the priority was a comprehensive welfare state to protect against the business cycle and provide universal public services. This strategy was underpinned by full employment in an industrial society, strong trade unions and a male breadwinner model (and combined with high rates of housebuilding and falling wealth inequality). The basis for this settlement broke down from the 1970s, leading to the dynamism but also the dislocation of the Thatcher-Major era. This period opened opportunities for greater economic security for some, especially through expanded higher education and homeownership. But de-industrialisation reduced access to the security of skilled working-class jobs, especially in certain parts of the country, while the decline in the stock of council homes and the deregulation of private renting undermined the basis for economic security for many.

This reordered settlement prompted a new set of intentions among social reformers in the 1990s, aimed at equalising opportunity and equipping more citizens to thrive in a ‘knowledge economy’. Under the Blair-Brown governments this led to an emphasis on education, active labour market policies, childcare, and targeted action to reduce child and pensioner poverty. That strategy delivered tangible progress, but much was unpicked or then overwhelmed by the disruptions of the last decade or so. The enduring legacy of that period can be seen in those reforms that put down institutional roots, like the minimum wage, pensions auto-enrolment, flexible working rights and childcare entitlements.

Reflecting on these previous periods makes clear that we need a different strategy for social reform for the mid-2020s and beyond. The knowledge economy has not delivered on the promise of opportunity for all, with the UK’s services-dominated economy generating a significant chunk of poor quality, precarious work. Education and skills provide real economic advantages, but human capital development is not enough to ensure economic security. The basic safety net has been eroded to the point that it permits intense hardship on a large scale (made worse by frayed social and civic infrastructure). The significance of assets and wealth have roared to the fore in determining life chances, particularly in relation to the housing market. And despite progress, the advance of care infrastructure remains incomplete (the impact of which falls disproportionality on women).

Overall, for too many people, everyday economic experiences generate anxiety, impose indignities, squeeze time for family and community, and narrow the bandwidth for looking to the future. Across all these areas, structural injustices and disadvantages associated with gender, race, disability and other protected characteristics persist. Crucially, we are also clearly living in an era of systemic risks and economic transitions, which create a different backdrop and context for social reform compared with the 1990s. For instance, the spread of digital technology heralds huge opportunities, but it is likely to be those with the foundations of security who are most equipped to engage with and seize them, by taking risks, retraining, switching careers and so on.

In response, a strategy for expanding economic security in the mid-2020s needs to respond to these new times. To work, it needs to take the question of ‘how’ to advance a new pro-security settlement as seriously as working out ‘what’ it should comprise. The focus on market protections and state minimums, plus institutional innovation and civic action, make this a pro-security strategy not wholly reliant on ‘taxes and transfers’. This reflects the many competing demands on public expenditure, but more significantly, it avoids heavy dependence on cycles of volatile and highly political spending choices. Looking across the proposals set out earlier, some principles can be drawn out about how a pro-security strategy might be advanced and embedded over time. It would:

• seek to shape pro-security outcomes directly, via market regulation to avoid unnecessary suffering (for example, via limiting workplace insecurity and insecurity for private renters) and through institutional arrangements that tilt in pro-security directions (such as in housing, affordable credit and pensions)
• give institutional force to pro-security directions, with the aim of creating a self-sustaining logic or path dependency, including going with the grain of existing institutional arrangements (such as building on the role of the established Low Pay Commission)
• ensure that the state ‘does no harm’ (such as in relation to experiences of receiving Universal Credit and benefit conditionality), while also recognising vital forms of agency beyond the central state (such as in enabling time for family life, the role of community-based support in the face of hardship, and the role of worker organisation)
• aim for strategies that can build broad coalitions of support, ideally with enough politically consequential groups who have interests in defending and extending the settlement (such as driving broad-based, rather than highly targeted, strategies in areas like housing, pensions and childcare)
• synchronise the terms of a pro-security settlement for households with a pro-dynamism, pro-prosperity macroeconomic strategy, including to help finance it (such as through policies to enable high levels of employment participation).

Expanding economic security would require additional public spending in some areas, but with the aim of catalysing the sources of economic prosperity to sustain it. If people are, ultimately, the most important driver of productivity, living in the grip of insecurity is hardly likely to generate their point of highest contribution. Further research on this connection is needed, but it is at least arguable that the foundations of security are crucial to equipping people with the bandwidth, the psychological safety, the chance to look ahead, to take risks, to invest in themselves, and to have the greatest chance to contribute to their best effect. To advance economic security is, therefore, to care about creating the conditions for our economy to fully utilise the extraordinary human capital we have at our disposal.

One final consideration is how the reforms envisaged here would interact with the UK’s devolution arrangements. A number of the ideas relate to reserved matters, where action would apply across the UK, such as social security, employment law and pensions. However, in key areas, responsibility rests with devolved government, or Westminster in respect of England, such as housing and childcare (in consort with local or city-based government). There are also planks of a future economic security settlement that imply a more expansive role for local places, whether via a ‘social safety net’, institutional arrangements to offer affordable credit or partnerships to address labour market exclusion. Ideally these would be forged through collaboration between the local state, civil society and citizens themselves.

With less than 18 months until the next election, polling consistently shows the cost of living and the NHS as top priorities for most voters. These speak to a range of fears and hopes in the electorate, but there are clear lines of connection between them both and the issues of economic security discussed in this briefing. Other analysts have highlighted the potential political potency of harnessing concerns about economic insecurity (Green et al., 2022 and Simons et al., 2023). Fixing the NHS and providing direct relief from high inflation are what voters are demanding right now. But might a project to expand economic security speak to some of the underlying discontents on which these immediate pressures rest?

For instance, there are reasons to think that the arguments and ideas set out here could tap into a range of ideological viewpoints, as the basis for broad political coalition building. Expanding economic security is about concrete improvements in people’s lives, rather than the pursuit of abstract growth, equality or well-being. For social democrats, this is a fundamentally egalitarian project, focused on the distribution of the foundations for security. For liberals, it aims at real freedom for individuals, while recognising that this rests on collective action and an interventionist state. It also puts family centre stage, acts on the destabilising and dehumanising effects of unlimited markets, and sees a legitimate role for the state in ensuring basic minimums in ways that could appeal to compassionate, one-nation Conservatives.

The potency of the political slogan ‘take back control’ – whether justifying Brexit or ‘levelling up’ – is in part that it offers a response to insecurity. To date, this has tended to be framed around the sense that places (or in Brexit’s case the nation) are subject to forces beyond their control and, therefore, not able to shape their destiny. The argument here is that a yearning for control, in the face of insecurity, applies just as much to individuals and families. And that this instinct could justify, inspire and guide a far-reaching project for social reform aimed at enabling as many people as possible to master their lives, not be victims to forces beyond their control. Doing so would provide a basis for them to enjoy dignity, opportunity and hope, as well as unleashing their wider economic and social contribution.

At a human level, to advance economic security is to care about the demanding conditions for people to be the author of their life and to participate in society to their fullest extent. Being economically secure might be summed up as having a degree of control, the ability to cope, and a platform for contribution. Advancing a project of social reform around the idea of economic security is less about rethinking measures or definitions of social justice than reimaging its challenges and priorities. Major trends in our society mean that the resources, relationships and capabilities on which economic security rests are increasingly the preserve of a minority – to the detriment of their lives, but also to the cost of society as a whole.

Finally, and paradoxically, a focus on economic security may be what is essential in an era of anxiety and uncertainty, where a sense of control and the ability to adapt will really matter. In an era of shocks, disruptions and transitions, we risk a divide between those who can see change as a source of opportunities to seize, and those who are, and feel, simply subject to its forces. It is the job of politics to offer hope of better times ahead and the inspiration that with hard work we can get there, together. The future is uncertain, for all of us, thank goodness. But the foundations of security, both real and perceived, make it more likely we can engage in the ups and downs of life with some confidence, now and into the future. A plan to expand economic security may be the best way to counter the fear and fatalism that we are a country in decline – and to offer a sense of ordinary hope that people can believe in.

ⁱ JRF analysis based on the Family Resources Survey.

ⁱⁱ Below 40% of median income after housing costs.

ⁱⁱⁱ The arguments in this paper find echo in analysis and ideas from across the political spectrum. For instance, Onward’s work before the 2019 election on the ‘politics of belonging’ and what the authors identified as a shift in British politics ‘from freedom and towards security’ (Tanner et al., 2019), as well as a more recent intervention from Labour Together, which argued for ‘a new politics of security’ (Simons et al., 2023).

^iv The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is partnering with the Nuffield Politics Research Centre (Professor Jane Green, Professor Geoffrey Evans, and Dr Zack Grant) to further explore economic security, building on our existing work in this area. This will be built around a landmark new survey, initially as a 3-wave panel run over 2 years, that will provide an unparalleled dataset to study the drivers, features and outcomes of economic security, for individuals and households, as well as their implications for political choices. The aim is to enable research that better illuminates which forms of insecurity matter most for different groups of people – as well as the impacts of various aspects of economic security for individuals and wider society.

^v Also see this overview of Office for National Statistics data on social capital.

^vi The focus here is mainly childcare, but the principles could apply to social care for adults and older people too. Similarly, the arguments here have relevance to consumer markets that this paper does not address, like utilities, insurance or banking.

^vii For instance, this review of the mental health impacts of the economic insecurities caused by Covid in Australia.

^viii This pillar recognises that family and community are often the bedrock of economic security. These relationships cannot be provided for or guaranteed by the state, but they can be supported and enabled (such as where security and control at work protects time for family). Similarly, forms of collective action outside the state can play a vital role in expanding economic security, such as trade unions, credit unions, community organisers, childcare co-operatives, or employee-owned firms.

^ix Such institutional innovation would maximise the benefit of land and planning reforms, such as removing ‘hope value’ from Compulsory Purchase Orders and enabling the development of poor-quality green belt land.

^x This should be combined with reforms to improve outcomes for workers during the accumulation phase, such as forcing consolidation of DC pension funds that would drive higher investment returns and good governance in member’s interests.

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