This week the government’s long-awaited levelling up white paper was published. There were positive plans to create regional mayors and legally binding ‘missions’ to lift living standards. But its 330 pages were mostly filled with recycled policy focussing too much on infrastructure and not enough on people.That’s where our report comes in. Launched on the same day, Closing the Divide calls for major policy shifts that would truly level up the country – with a focus on empowering mayors, boosting incomes and the everyday economy, supporting small businesses, and investing in green jobs.
Read Miatta’s response to the levelling up white paper in the Guardian.
Social security for all Our innovative research shows that auto-enrolling everyone onto the universal credit system, and making automatic payments as soon as eligible, would lift 380,000 people out of poverty.
Dominic Caddick compares our proposals with approaches such as a universal basic income.
The unequal impact of the energy bill crisis Soaring energy bills will hit single parents, pensioners and disabled people hardest, write Chaitanya Kumar, Dominic Caddick and Alfie Stirling.
UPDATE: As this newsletter went to press, we updated our analysis in response to the energy price cap rise – here and here.
Video: A Green New Deal for people and places From farmers in Lancashire to students in Warwickshire, people share what a fairer and greener future might look like for their communities. Journalist Paul Mason described our short film as ‘superb’. Be sure to watch it and share it.
The decade the rich won Miatta also appeared on BBC Two documentary The Decade the Rich Won, which unpicked what has happened to the UK economy since the 2008 financial crisis.
“We know these sanctions don’t work” Alfie Stirling spoke about government plans for new benefit sanctions on LBC.
Making our economy work for people and the planet Margaret Welsh wrote about our recent Green New Deal pamphlet for Big Issue North.
Changing the conversation on the economy Sofie Jenkinson wrote for the Institute for Public Policy Research’s Progressive Review.
