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

Unstable pay

This report from UK think tank the Resolution Foundation looks at new estimates of earnings volatility in the UK. This report uses a newly available dataset – payroll data held by HM Revenue and Customs on over 250,000 working-age people covering April 2014 to March 2019 – to look at monthly and weekly volatility in...

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Turning the tide

This report from UK think tank the Resolution Foundation focuses on the Government’s headline metric of relative child poverty and looks at what might be needed to achieve this goal. The Government is due to publish a Child Poverty Strategy later this year, with a promise to bring about “an enduring reduction in child poverty”....

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Money, money, money

This report from UK think tank the Resolution Foundation considers the components of income in the round over the last 30 years. The UK has endured two decades of very sluggish progress on living standards, with a special squeeze on those we describe as Unsung Britain – working-age households, with incomes below the median. This...

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Sunny day savings

This report from UK think tank the Resolution Foundation assesses government support for solar panels. The new Government’s plan to decarbonise the electricity system brings with it the lofty aim of tripling total solar capacity by the end of the decade. Although much of this will be driven by large-scale installations, ministers are also hoping...

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Heritage and home

This report from UK think tank the Resolution Foundation investigates ethnic inequalities in housing affordability. Britain, today, is a more plural country than ever before. The share of the population from a White British background in England and Wales stood at just under 75 per cent in 2021, down from over 87 per cent in...

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Ageing in the fast and slow lane

This report from UK think tank the Resolution Foundation examines geographic gaps in ageing across the country. All developed countries are ageing, and the UK is no different. The combination of rising life expectancy, a large cohort of baby boomers moving into retirement and falling birth rates means the country’s median age rose from 33.9...

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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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Upcoming events

27 March 2025

Location: Online / Resolution Foundation, 2 Queen Anne's Gate , London SW1H 9AA

Think tank: Resolution Foundation

Spring cleaning the public finances

This event hosted by UK think tank the Resolution Foundation will assess the Chancellor’s Spring Statement and the UK economic outlook. The Chancellor set out her first ever Budget less than five months ago, but the UK’s economic outlook has changed considerably since then. Bad news on growth, inflation and borrowing point to a deterioration...