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Report
Social security
Work

Employment support for a high-wage economy

As part of its desire for a higher-wage and lower-welfare economy, the Government has ambitions to halve the disability employment gap, reach full employment and launch an ‘all-out assault on poverty’. Achieving these goals will require significant reforms to the UK’s system of employment support.

Written by:
Matt Oakley
Date published:

This report:

  • demonstrates that the current system of employment support fails to help those furthest from finding work and those caught in a low-pay, no-pay cycle;
  • shows that if each in-work tax credit recipient received the support needed to help them earn £30 a week more (less than an hour a day extra at the national minimum wage), Exchequer savings would amount to £4.1 billion each year;
  • uses UK and international evidence to put forward a blueprint for delivering this through a more ambitious system;
  • makes recommendations to radically reform the role of Jobcentre Plus and introduce more effective support programmes for the hardest to help.

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