Resolution Foundation

The Resolution Foundation is an independent think-tank focused on improving the living standards of those on low-to-middle incomes. There are eight million low-to-middle income families in the UK, including twelve million adults and nearly seven million children. We work across a wide range of economic and social policy, combining our core purpose with a commitment to analytical rigour.

The Foundation’s established work programme includes incomes and inequalityjobsskills and payhousingwealth and debttax and welfarepublic finances and the economy. More recently, it has added work streams on tradenet zero and productivity, as well as covering these issues through both an intergenerational and cities lens.

Since 2018, we have calculated the real Living Wage – a voluntary hourly pay rate that is based on what families need to get by.

Between 2021 and 2023, the Resolution Foundation collaborated with the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics on The Economy 2030 Inquiry. The Inquiry brought together leaders from business, academia and policy making, in both the UK and US, to both diagnose the causes of the UK’s poor economic performance in recent decades, and to set out a new economic strategy for the 2020s. Over the course of the project, the Resolution Foundation published over 90 reports, briefing notes and comment pieces, examining the change that the UK is living through, and setting out a plan for successfully navigating that change. In December 2023, this work culminated in the publication of the Inquiry’s final report, Ending Stagnation.


Latest reports

A hard day’s night

This report from UK think tank the Resolution Foundation provides the context for the Government’s ambitions to raise employment and drive up job quality. This report – part of our ‘Unsung Britan’ programme of work – provides the context for the Government’s ambitions to raise employment and drive up job quality. It describes the labour...

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Trading blows

This report from UK think tank the Resolution Foundation asks how should Britain buy and sell in a turbulent world? Recently the UK has faced tough times in trade, juggling twin shocks of Brexit and Covid. While service exports have stayed strong, goods trade has struggled. With a possible further disruption to goods trade around...

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Inequality control

This report from UK think tank the Resolution Foundation explores why wealth inequality has not increased while asset prices have soared and what that means for the future. The turbulent 2020s have had profound implications for household wealth in Britain: lockdowns pushed saving to unprecedented highs, asset prices surged and then tanked, and high inflation...

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An intergenerational audit for the UK: 2024

This report from UK think tank the Resolution Foundation examines the critical support older generations offer to younger ones. Along the journey from cradle to grave, all sorts of things – including meaning, nurturing and understanding – flow between the generations. But there are also important and much more quantifiable flows – of time, money...

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Get Britain’s stats working

This report from UK think tank the Resolution Foundation explores alternatives to Labour Force Survey estimates. The Government is soon to release its ‘Get Britain Working’ White Paper, which is expected to repeat the Government’s ambition to reach an 80 per cent employment rate. But this goal only highlights the fact that we currently do...

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Unsung Britain

This report from UK think tank the Resolution Foundation looks at the changing economic circumstances of the poorer half of Britain. This report marks the launch of Unsung Britain, a one-year research programme designed to understand the economic circumstances of today’s low-to-middle income families and how these have changed in recent decades, with support from...

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More, more, more

This report from UK think tank the Resolution Foundation puts the autumn budget 2024 decisions on tax, spending and borrowing into context. This has been the most anticipated Budget of modern times. It had to wrestle with profound – and sometimes conflicting – challenges: fixing the strained public services; repairing failing public services; and breaking...

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Getting the green light

This report from UK think tank the Resolution Foundation looks at the path to a fair transition for the transport sector. This report continues the Resolution Foundation’s programme of work looking at the main challenges from reducing carbon emissions across different sectors of the economy, and how associated changes will impact households on low-to-middle incomes....

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Great expectations in hard times?

This report from UK think tank the Resolution Foundation will preview the big decisions for the Chancellor in the new Government’s first Budget. In this briefing note, we put the big decisions faced by Chancellor in the new Government’s pivotal first Budget into context, discussing the new – and old – spending pressures faced, how...

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Perfectly adequate?

This report from UK think tank the Resolution Foundation revisits pensions adequacy 20 years after the Pensions Commission. In 2002, the Labour Government established the Pensions Commission to review the UK’s private pensions system and make recommendations for reform. Twenty years on from the Commission’s landmark first report, the auto-enrolment pension regime it proposed has...

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The growth mindset

This report from UK think tank the Resolution Foundation sizes up the new Government’s growth agenda as it sets out to make the country the fastest-growing in the G7. This briefing note sizes up the new Government’s growth agenda as it sets out to make the country the fastest-growing in the G7. We explore the...

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Building blocks

This report from UK think tank the Resolution Foundation assesses the role of planning reform in meeting the Government’s housing targets. The Government has prioritised planning reform as its key policy lever to deliver an ambitious target of 1.5 million additional homes by the end of this Parliament. This note explores the extent to which...

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Revenue and reform

This report from UK think tank the Resolution Foundation explores some of the tax policy choices that may face the new Chancellor. Ahead of Autumn Budget 2024, this report explores some of the tax policy choices that may face the new Chancellor, and sets out what reforms could best raise revenue while also improving the...

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Low Pay Britain 2024

This report from UK think tank the Resolution Foundation examines the Government’s proposed employment reforms. The Government is planning the largest set of workplace reforms in a generation, with plans to overhaul multiple areas of employment policy. These have the potential to make real inroads in the problem of insecurity at work, and would particularly...

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The Living Standards Outlook 2024

This report from UK think tank the Resolution Foundation provides an assessment of incomes, poverty and inequality as things stand in 2024-25. This is our sixth annual Living Standards Outlook. It provides an assessment of incomes, poverty and inequality as things stand in 2024-25, and projections up to 2029-30 using economic forecasts and policy assumptions...

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